Does monster magic count as witchcraft?
by RealEdgeQuarter
Summary: (Currently being rewritten) Jeremiah just wanted to go on a mission trip to convert some savages, why did he have to fall down into a cave filled with demonic flowers, narrating ghosts, over bearing magical goats, spooky skeletons and soul sucking monsters? Guess he'll have to try converting these guys instead, that is if he stops panicking about it all first.
1. Psalms 119:176

It was a bright and sunny day in Murisuna, the sky was blue with no clouds in sight. Almost anyone living in Murisuna would agree on what this sort of weather would mean for them. It would mean their day would be filled with sweat, and they would all get the pleasure of having the sun slowly bake them at a nice temperature of over a hundred degrees. Yet despite the quite ridiculous heat, everyone went about their day. Farmers plow their fields, ranchers watch over their herds, hunters chase their prey upon horseback, and city folk did their jobs.

If one wasn't able to guess by the heat, Murisuna was practically one great big desert. The only exception to that being the snow-capped mountains up north. And as the paragraph above would indicate, people were actually stupid enough to live here. Farmers, cowboys, bandits, cultists, and some especially stupid people who thought it would be a great idea to try and rebuild civilization. These were just some of the people who called Murisuna home.

This story isn't about any of those types of people. Instead, it's about a weak and slightly fanatic child, and how he (quite literally) stumbled his way into saving an entire civilization.

* * *

Jeremiah ran up the hill as fast as he could, which was to say not very fast at all. His legs felt like they were on fire and ready to give up from underneath him, but he pushed himself, refusing to stop. As he ran up the hill, he couldn't help but regret leaving Father Caiaphes's side to try talking with other people in the caravan. Sure, Father Caiaphes was nice enough to let him go, (although he was a bit reluctant) saying. "Sure, go ahead Jeremiah. Just be careful not to get lost. Also… please just ignore any mean people Jeremiah." At the time, Jeremiah had been confused by that last request, but in hindsight, Jeremiah understood why he said it.

"Please don't leave me behind!" He yelled out between desperate gulps for air as he reached the top of the hill.

He couldn't see anyone for a moment, then he saw the caravan slowly melt into the horizon. He stared at their constantly shrinking shapes in disbelief. "They… they actually left me behind? Sure, they all acted rude whenever I tried talking to them, but they can't just leave me here, Father Caiaphes wouldn't let them." He stood there, hoping they would turn around for him. They never did.

Jeremiah had stood there for what seemed like forever, trying to grasp the fact he had been left. But once he finally processed what happened, he just let out a sad sigh. He had been left on the middle of a mountain because everyone else had to be superstitious idiots. Seriously, anyone with half a brain would realize the blight wasn't contagious and was just a birth defect. But apparently that whole caravan besides for him and Father Caiaphes were idiots, because they refused to even speak to him. Jeremiah honestly found it a little bit depressing, he had been so excited to go on this mission trip when Father Caiaphes first offered him. He had been looking forward to getting to see the world outside the monastery and getting to talk with other people besides the monks and the occasional trader. That wasn't even mentioning the part he was looking forward to most, getting to tell savages about the light of Christ.

But all of his hopes and dreams seemed to have been in vain. The outside world was just like the world around the monastery, nothing but rocks, dust, cacti and hardened, cracked, soil. Everyone was being rude to him, and if this supposedly civilized caravan were all too terrified of him to acknowledge his presence, how in the world would he convert actual savages?

So with all of this in mind, it was no surprise that he was pretty upset. He was so upset, he did something very uncharacteristic, he let out a yell. "Damn those idiots!" He then kicked the cliffside next to him, his anger quickly turned to pain and he let out a yelp.

He leaned against the very cause of his pain and rubbed his foot, his boot was now laying in the dirt. Once the pain faded away and he was convinced he hadn't broken anything, he felt ashamed. He had just insulted over a hundred people for no other reason than being ignorant and afraid. He could understand not wanting to catch the blight, he had it and could personally attest to it being miserable. He could even understand why the few people in the back of the caravan didn't slow down for him, they just didn't want to be left behind as well.

He bent his head down, closed his eyes, and prayed. "Please forgive me for being so quick to anger, and please pardon their ignorance, Adonai." He paused as he felt some of his guilt melt away, he then smiled. "Thank you, Adonai. I know this request is obvious, but please help me know what to do. Should I stay here until someone finds me, or should I try to catch up with them? I ask this in your Son Jesus's holy name, amen." He waited a moment for some sort of answer. He received one in the form of reaching a sudden decision, he would keep moving forward. He thanked God again and marched forward, (after putting his boot back on) his knapsack hanging by side.

* * *

Hours passed by. The sun was slowly sinking behind a distant mountain range, casting the sky into shades of red, yellow, purple and blue. Jeremiah was utterly exhausted and his entire body ached. Despite that and the fact he hasn't seen the caravan since he saw them melt into the horizon, he followed their tracks.

He knew he would have to stop and rest soon, but he wanted to wait until it got too dark to move forward. So he kept marching forward, ignoring how his eyes were becoming heavier and heavier.

Eventually , the sun fully dipped behind the mountain, leaving the moon and stars the job to illuminate the world. Jeremiah was so tired, he almost didn't realize it was now night until the cold began to grip him. A not so well known fact about deserts is that they can become freezing at night. He blinked blearily and asked himself. "Where should I lay down?" His gaze landed on a conveniently placed cave and he found his answer.

He stumbled his way into the warm cave. It wasn't that large, only a few feet deep into the mountain. There obviously weren't any blankets or beds in there, only rocks and dirt, but he wouldn't complain. He slowly stumbled his way around the small cave, trying to find a good spot to sleep. Fortunately, on account of his half-asleep stumbling, he never noticed the giant gaping hole in the ground until he fell through it. If this happened at any other time, Jeremiah would either beg God to let him live or praise God for letting him come back to his true home. But Jeremiah was far too tired for any of that at the moment. So he just numbly accepted the fact he was rapidly hurtling down a black abyss and closed his eyes to rest.

* * *

Jeremiah's eyes opened, a distant light was coming from high above him but he could not see its source. Jeremiah blinked in confusion before noticing the rock ceiling, then he remembered what happened. "Did… did I die?" The question was a simple one, yet it produced so much joy in Jeremiah. One might find that disturbing, to be excited at the prospect of being dead, but Jeremiah viewed it from an angle that was alien to most people.

Ever since he had been born, he had been afflicted with the blight, his parents abandoned him at the monastery for that very reason. He didn't blame them for that, actually, he thought thanking them would be most appropriate. Even if he were to ignore how well the monks treated him, the wonderful opportunities to learn such things as ancient English and scripture, and the safety of the monastery, he would still thank them for abandoning him. Because more often than not, children born with the blight are killed as soon as their parents realized they had it. It's not out of hatred, or even fear of spreading the disease, most people just view it as a common courtesy, preventing their child from slowly dying a miserable death.

While Jeremiah had been blessed to only have a particularly mild strain of the blight, it still slowly ruined his insides, weakened his whole body, and marked him with its telltale signs. That's why he always found the idea of heaven so appealing, a new body that would never feel pain, and even better, to be so close to his God and king, his only hope! So yes, he would be happy if he was dead.

Unfortunately for Jeremiah, he was still very much alive, the pain that suddenly shot through his body proved as much. He let out a sad pathetic scream, that was quickly replaced by sobbing and violent coughing.

It took a few minutes for the pain to dull to a point that Jeremiah could even begin to think rationally. "So I'm not dead." His voice was shaky and a few droplets of blood escaped his mouth as he spoke. He noticed this, and knowing what had happened, looked down at his robes. He had managed to cough up blood all over his robes again. Despite that being a semi-normal occurrence for Jeremiah, seeing it just made everything seem even worse. He laid there and started to sob again. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn't bring himself to care enough to stop.

While Jeremiah was perfectly willing to die, he wasn't such a big fan on slowly and painfully dying alone, inside some dark, cold cave no less. Eventually, after much crying, he realized what he had to do. "I'll have to pick myself off the ground."

He cringed at the idea, he knew that was going to hurt quite a lot. "There has to be something else I can do." He racked his brain for any other possible solution. As the seconds ticked by, he slowly began to realize he could only think of one other thing to do, it was stupid and he knew it wouldn't work. But in desperation, he cried out. "Can someone, anyone help me?" His cry for help echoed throughout the cave. He knew nobody would come, he was alone in the cave after all, but to his surprise, somebody actually came. "Where am I?"

Jeremiah was shocked when he heard the voice. It sounded like it belonged to a girl about his age, but he couldn't see where they were. "Can you please help me?" He cried out, his voice was pained but his relief was still evident in it. Instead of helping him up or even acknowledging him, the girl kept muttering questions to herself. Questions like, "How am I alive? Did our plan fail?" Jeremiah had no idea what she was talking about, but he was slowly starting to understand the girl wouldn't be helping him. So, with no options left, he tried to stand back up.

As soon as he moved an inch, his whole body flared in pain and he let out another pitiful scream. "I can't do this!" He cried. But despite his brain screaming that fact at him repeatedly, he felt something else begin to flow through him, something foreign, it made him feel like nothing would stop him from getting back up.

And before he knew it, Jeremiah was standing back up on his own two very shaky feet. "Are you alright? I'm sorry for not noticing you earlier, I was… busy with my own issues." The girl now sounded embarrassed and apologetic. Jeremiah was far too tired to get angry about being ignored earlier, so he simply mumbled out. "It's alright." He then looked around the room, hoping to find the girl so she could help him walk. But all he saw were the walls of the cave, a patch of the greenest grass he ever saw, and some weird yellow plants his brain dimly registered as flowers. Normally that would've excited him, he never saw a flower before, but he wasn't in the mood for that right now. Quickly giving up on finding her on his own, he asked. "Where are you?"

There was silence in the room, leaving Jeremiah standing in the middle of the room with trembling legs. Eventually, when Jeremiah was just about to give up and leave, the girl spoke up hesitantly. "It's hard to describe." The girl paused before adding. "I think I'm inside your head." Jeremiah's hand immediately shot up to his head, he couldn't feel any bleeding or bumps up there. The girl- no, the voice in his head, seemed to quickly realize how crazy that sounded and tried to explain how it wasn't. But it was too little, too late. Jeremiah was now firmly convinced he hit his head a little too hard in that fall, and he would now ignore that voice because to do otherwise would be insane.

So he slowly walked out of the room, using the cave's wall as support the whole time, while ignoring the voice's protests. Despite gripping onto the wall, every step he took was uncertain and felt like his legs were on fire. Yet he pressed on. After spending a good few minutes doing this, he reached the next room.

This room was much like the last one, except instead of a whole patch of flowers, there was only a single one. One that just so happened to be smiling and speaking to Jeremiah. But being fully aware that flowers can't talk, he just walked past it. Which was unfortunate, because if he had been paying attention, he would have noticed the flower's ever-increasing anger at being ignored. He may have even noticed the vine that was slowly creeping towards his leg. The voice noticed it and tried to warn him, but he was still refusing to acknowledge the voice's existence so he never noticed it until it was too late.

It all happened so fast. Jeremiah felt something coil itself around his leg. Before he could even register the fact this happened, the vine pulled him down onto the ground. Jeremiah' s face planted onto the ground. He then felt the vibe yank his leg, pulling him into the air. He heard a loud popping sound and screaming, it took him a moment to realize he was screaming. He blinked for just a moment, and when he opened his eyes he found himself being swung face-first into one of the cave walls. He could feel the way the rocks scraped and cut his face, but he couldn't feel any pain. He was then unceremoniously dropped onto the ground, his landing was far less gentle this time. He could feel one of his ribs cracking, but he dimly registered the fact he was in shock, so it didn't hurt too bad. He tried to look up from the ground, but he found himself barely able to see past the blood. It took him a minute to realize it, but he now faced to face with the flower. It's smile, once filled with innocence, was now filled with rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth, plus a little bit of sadism.

It said something to Jeremiah, but he couldn't hear it past the pounding of his heart. This seemed to enrage it further, and suddenly dozens of white pellets appeared all around him. He watched as these strange pellets slowly started to float towards him, the flower's cackling filling his ears. Then suddenly, the laughter stopped. He looked up and couldn't see the flower anymore. Jeremiah was now confused, tired, and thirsty. The voice in his head tried screaming at him a few times, but it soon grew quiet. Jeremiah was relieved about that, actually, he was relieved about something else as well. That was the fact he was getting to go to heaven today after all, despite the confusing and painful delays on the way. He closed his eyes, ready to accept death.

Jeremiah was surprised to hear something walking towards him, instead of some sort of heavenly bells or literally anything else. He was even more surprised to hear them speaking, although he couldn't quite make out what they were saying.

He opened his eyes and looked up, hoping to see an angel that would take him to heaven. Instead, standing there ready to claim his soul was the demon Baphomet. This immediately cleared up Jeremiah's mind and set him into panic mode. He hadn't dedicated his whole ( admittedly short) life to God, just so his soul could be stolen by a demon last minute!

He ignored the pain in his arms and desperately rummaged through his knapsack. He quickly found it, and with newfound strength, flung the whole bottle of holy water at the goat-man demon. "Begone, foul demon!" He yelled. It shattered on impact, drenching the demon with the holy water. But instead of immediately bursting into flame, the demon stood there unimpressed. Jeremiah wanted to scream in panic but passed out from exhaustion instead.

* * *

Today was supposed to have been just another day for Toriel. She would wake up, walk around the ruins, make sure to greet her fellow monsters, before going hunting for snails. After all that, she would finally check to see if any other humans had fallen down. She hadn't expected anyone to actually fall down, but she should've seen it coming. It had been far too long, about six hundred years too long, since a human last fell down, just to be led to the slaughter. But like a coward, she hoped no one else would fall down into this prison.

She was hunting snails when she heard the child screaming in pain. She could remember the panic in her heart as she ran all the way back to her precious daughter's grave. She could also remember the burning rage she felt upon seeing what that horrid flower was doing to that poor child. It hadn't been too hard to send that coward flying angel knows where. What was hard, was to see the child's reaction to her, fear and panic. He even called her a demon and flung a glass bottle of water at her before passing out.

Toriel idly glanced at her robes, they still had glass embedded in them. "I should probably take those out now." She thought to herself before shaking her head. "Not until the child wakes back up." She then looked back up at the slumbering child. He was in quite a bad state when Toriel found him, he was covered in so much blood that for a moment, she could only think of Chara. Thankfully, she was quickly able to pull herself back together and examine the child. She soon realized that the child's bleeding wasn't as bad as she feared. Most of the blood seemed to be coming from a cut on his forehead, it was rather deep but it wasn't anything healing magic couldn't fix. He did have quite a lot of broken bones, however. She could only guess that was caused by that fiend who had been trying to kill him. "I really need to find them before they cause any more harm." She couldn't help but smile slightly as she imagined giving that flower quite the fright.

Anyway, after giving his wound's a brief exam, she healed his wounds with her magic and carried him back to her home. The child had been surprisingly light, it turned out their robes were too big on the child, but they fit in such a way to make the child look bigger than they actually were. The poor child was actually as thin as a stick. She had wanted to throw those robes out, they felt like sandpaper, were stained with blood and had multiple holes in them. But she decided to just fold them and place them in a corner, the child may want something familiar after all. She would've washed the robes as well, but she wasn't quite sure if they could survive a wash. She left his knapsack behind the shoebox, she had been tempted to dig through it and see what was in there, but she decided to accept the child's privacy. She also scrubbed a terrifying amount of dirt and sand off the child's pale, milky white skin. Finally, she put Asriel's old clothes on him and tucked him into bed.

She had been quite lucky the child passed out when he did, if the child had been awake she wasn't sure if she could've gotten him to follow her. She knew she couldn't rely on the child being asleep forever, so she would need to find a way to work around his fear. Her heart ached at the idea the child may be terrified of monsters now, all because of that cruel flower. But a small selfish part of her thought that maybe for the best. If he feared monsters, he may actually listen to her and stay here with her. There would be no need for any more children to die that way. "They wouldn't have died if you did something to stop Him." She shook the sudden and bitter thought out of her mind, she had been doing her best after all. Thankfully, a knock on the door prevented any possibility of that part of her mind to make any comebacks.

She made her way to the door and opened it. She smiled when she saw the little ghost floating there, multiple bags of groceries floating beside them. "Hey… I got your groceries Miss Toriel." The ghost's voice was hesitant, but Toriel wasn't. She grabbed the bags and replied. "Thank you Napstablook, how much were you out?" The ghost managed to blush at the question. "I wouldn't worry about it miss Toriel... I probably got all the wrong stuff." She was about to tell them that wasn't true, but they vanished before she could say anything else. She then closed the door with a sigh before making her way to the kitchen.

She had wanted to make the child a pie for when he woke up, but she wasn't comfortable with the idea of leaving the child alone. Luckily, Napstablook had been in the ruins and heard about the injured child. Toriel was honestly surprised, but thankful, by them working up the courage to ask if they could help. So she asked her old friend to get her some cinnamon and butterscotch, among some other ingredients. While a pie might satisfy a child's natural sweet tooth, it wouldn't be entirely healthy for that rail-thin child to only eat pie, even if it was a snail one. So she also asked Napstablook to get some veggies and meats as well, she had a child to bulk up after all.

* * *

**(NEW AN) So I re-read the first couple paragraphs of this chapter, and I didn't like them at all. I also don't have a full/strict plan for this story, just a collection of ideas, so there was a few contradictions between chapters. So I decided to just rewrite the parts of this chapter I didn't like. I have lots of ideas I wanna try to use in this story, but I'm not sure if I'm going to use them all. So here's a list of slight potential spoilers just in case I don't end up using them. 1. If it isn't obvious, the surface has experienced a nuclear war in the distant past. 2. The region known as Murisuna is made up of the former states of Arizona, New Mexico, and bits of southern Utah and northwestern texas. Also a good chunk of Sonora is included. 3. Monster magic isn't actually magic, it's just a form of energy. 4. Monsters are most definitely not mutants, just wanted to make that clear. 5. The blight is a form of mutation. Here's Some of the primary effects of the more severe strains of blight. Cancerous growths, hair loss, peeling skin, internal bleeding, weakening of the bones and eventual total organ failure. Almost all forms of the blight cause Albinism. **

**Hope you guys enjoy the new version of the chapter. Please let me know if you like the new one better. God bless.**

**Ps. You guys really need to watch jo-jo rabbit, it may actually be my new favorite movie.**

**(Old ****AN) You can skip this if you want, because this basically me giving a little backstory on myself and what the main OC is. So, I've always daydreamed while working for as far back as I can remember. I also liked to read fanfic out to work as well. Eventually, I figured since I spend so much time daydreaming, I shou****ld try writing so that daydreaming can be productive. I would say its been about a year or two ago since I first started writing.**

**When I first got started, I had an idea for a novel, but I kept finding myself making major changes to the story. Eventually, I realized I should practice writing way shorter stories first, instead of starting with a novel. So I started doing writing prompts on Reddit, in the hopes that people would comment on whatever I wrote and give me advice. I did pretty good there, even made one that got over a thousand upvotes. I also made a few short stories on Reddit as well. But during all this, I would keep trying to write this novel, but I would get barely into it before rewriting major portions of it.**

**Eventually, I wrote that Brightburn/ stranger things crossover that I'm still afraid to reread because of how cringey it probably is now. But I don't regret it because I got some pretty good advice and got some experience in writing a multi-chaptered story. Not long after writing that fanfic, I came up with the idea for another completely original story to post on Reddit. I got the first draft of all ten chapters nearly done but I couldn't stop day dreaming about this one scenario. What if one of the characters from that first attempted novel replaced Frisk in undertale. So against better judgement, (I still need to finish my other story's first draft) I decided to write the first chapter of this.**

**I debated which character to write about, mainly debating between the main villain of the story or the one I ended up picking, Jeremiah. The reason I picked Jeremiah is honestly kind of stupid, I picked him because it would change the story of undertale less than the villain would. Yes, I'm lazy but I have to finish my other story. So being perfectly honest, this story may not be updated for a while, probably not until I finish my other story. **

**Please leave a review and let me know what you think of this story. Also any advice on my writing is highly appreciated. Also just passed my G.E.D tests today! I should be getting it tonight, Thank God! (: **


	2. Psalms 4:8

Jeremiah made his way through the monastery as fast as he could. Which was actually quite slow on account of his poor athletic ability. The fact he was carrying a large stack of books he couldn't even see past didn't help either. Despite the current obstruction to his eyesight, Jeremiah knew exactly where he was going. He expertly navigated the many twists and turns of the monastery without having to stop once. He even managed to avoid a loose piece of cobblestone that just barely stuck out of the floor, it had been the downfall (in the most literal sense) of many monks over the years.

It didn't take Jeremiah very long to reach his destination. He couldn't see it, but he knew there would be a wooden door in front of him at the moment. He went to knock on the door, before quickly realizing the books would fall if he tried that. Jeremiah let out a frustrated sigh and leaned his back against the wall, then lightly kicked the door in an imitation of a knock. "Come in." Father Caiaphes said from the other side of the door.

"Can you open the door for me? My hands are full." Jeremiah asked in reply. Jeremiah could hear his teacher get out of his chair and make his way to the door. Then with a simple pull of a knob, the door was open. On the other side of it was a smiling middle-aged man. His once blond hair (Jeremiah could only barely remember what it looked like) was almost completely white now, but balding still hadn't begun yet. His hair still wasn't as white as Jeremiah's though. He was also rather bulky and tall, if Jeremiah had to guess he would be the tallest man at the monastery.

The man leaned down and reached under Jeremiah's hood to ruffle his white hair. Jeremiah tried to protest this, but it was to no avail. Then before he knew it, his teacher had taken the books out of his hands and was walking inside his study. He placed them onto his desk, just adding even more confusion to the organized chaos that was his desk. He then turned around and gave Jeremiah an expectant look. Jeremiah quickly took the hint and walked inside, making sure to close the door behind him. His teacher, smiling once again, said. "You can sit anywhere you like." Jeremiah's red eyes widened like saucers. "Anywhere?" He asked in hopeful wonder. His teacher nodded, causing Jeremiah to let out a small squeak of joy. He then quickly darted over to his teachers chair and practically jumped onto it. With his hands raised high in the sky in victory, he spun himself and the chair around a few times, enjoying the thrill ride that was his teacher's ancient and rare swivel chair.

This was only his second time using it, the first time had been two days ago. He had actually snuck in to try it out, but Father Caiaphes quickly caught him in the act and gave him a rather polite warning to not use other people's things without permission. Jeremiah had been pretty embarrassed and ashamed at the time, that was the first time he had ever actually done anything like that. But now that he was having the time of his life, that seemed like a distant memory. His teachers laughter on the other hand, didn't seem quite so distant. He quickly stopped his spinning, (even though his vision took a while to catch up to that) and glanced at his teacher, his cheeks now as red as his eyes. His teacher waved his hand at him. "Go on, it's fine." Jeremiah embarrassment only grew once he noticed how his teacher was trying to bite back even more laughter. So Jeremiah began to spin himself again, far slower this time and much more dignified.

After what seemed like forever to Jeremiah, he got far too dizzy to continue spinning. So he forced himself to stop his spinning. Jeremiah closed his eyes as the chair slowed down to a stop, hoping that by closing them he would stop the migraine. After a few seconds past, he opened his eyes and didn't like what he saw. Despite the fact that neither him or the chair were moving anymore, the world still seemed to be spinning around him. He rubbed his eyes for a few seconds before looking again. The spinning seemed to be slowing down slightly. "Feeling a bit queasy there Jeremiah?" His teacher asked, sounding quite amused. Jermiah nodded slightly. "Well you should try to focus on one thing until that feeling fades away." So Jeremiah did his best to keep his eyes facing towards his teacher.

His teacher sat there quietly and patiently until Jeremiah told him the spinning was gone. Once he did, his teacher reached underneath his desk and pulled something out. He then placed whatever it was on the desk. Jeremiah looked at it in curiosity. It was a rather large leather knapsack with about six different pockets. "Happy sixth birthday." His teacher said with cheer. Jeremiah's eyes brightened. "That's today?" He asked in equal parts confusion and excitement. His teacher nodded and told him to open up the knapsack. He quickly complied and pulled the main flap open. He reached inside it and immediately felt a book. His heart leapt in amazement and he wondered if it could really be.

He pulled the book out and gasped. Judging by the title branded onto the leather cover, it was a copy of the Bible. Jeremiah stared at it slack jawed. He slowly started to flick through its thick and heavy pages. Each word inside it was handwritten, and he noticed several notes at the bottom of each page. After a while of doing this, he remembered the other person in the room. He looked up, blushing slightly from embarrassment from possibly seeming ungrateful. His teacher was still smiling however. "I'm guessing you like it? Almost the entire monastery helped to make it over the course of the past year. If you look at the bottom of some of the pages you'll sometimes find a note, everyone who helped make this for you added at least one." Jeremiah said nothing. Instead he got out of his chair and walked towards his teacher. He then wrapped his hands around Caiaphas and said. "Thank you."

Then, the memory faded all around him.

* * *

Jeremiah opened his eyes and saw only darkness. "Father Caiaphes!" He shouted, full of panic on account of still clinging onto the memory. When no reply came immediately, his panic doubled. "Where am I? Is anyone else here?"

He was just about to start running around in the void in the hopes of finding someone, when someone decided to save him the trouble. "Greetings. I am Chara. " Chara's voice was cold and neutral, causing Jeremiah to freeze. He never heard someone sound so... emotionless. "Calm down. Just because they sound creepy doesn't mean you should be rude to them." Jeremiah thought to himself. So, against his better judgement he turned around.

Someone he could only assume to be Chara was standing a few feet behind him. The thing that caught his immediate attention was their odd clothing. Chara wore a green and yellow striped wool shirt, it had sleeves that only went up to Chara's elbow. Their brown pants were much the same, just barely going past their knees. Jeremiah could only wonder why someone would wear such short clothing, just wearing it would be begging to get sunburnt.

After spending quite a while gawking at Chara's horrible taste in clothing, Chara spoke up. "You know it's rude to just ignore and stare at someone, don't you?" Jermiah jumped slightly upon hearing that cold monotone voice once more. He then muttered out an apology and looked up, his pale face now twinged with red from embarrassment. He was just about to introduce himself, but as soon as he made eye contact with Chara, the words died in his throat.

Chara's eyes were just as red as his own.

That wouldn't normally be a problem for Jeremiah, because plenty of people have the blight, so red eyes weren't something unheard of. What was unheard of however, was someone who had the blight but didn't have white hair. Chara's hair was a chestnut brown and came all the way down to their shoulder. Of course the smile that seemed to stretch all the way across their place and freckled face didn't comfort him either.

Jeremiah tried to push past his fear, reminding himself God would protect him and forced himself to speak. "Uhh… howdy Chara. My name is Jeremiah." Chara's smile seemed to lose its creepiness as he spoke, it almost seemed like Chara was feeling nostalgic. But as soon as he was done introducing himself, the creepiness returned. Chara did nothing for the next few seconds, before suddenly taking a step forward. Jeremiah couldn't help but let out a small squeak and jumped back slightly.

He looked back up at Chara, fully expecting to be murdered in some strange black void. But when he looked back up at Chara, they were no longer smiling, they were giggling instead. Jeremiah stared at Chara, his terror slowly morphing into confusion as Chara's giggles turned into laughter. It eventually got to the point Chara was doubled over laughing. Eventually Chara's laughter died down and they straightened themselves back up, making sure to wipe a tear away from one of their eyes. "Oh man, I'm sorry for that. It's just that its been so long since I last got somebody with that trick." Chara's voice was no longer cold and lifeless, it now sounded bright and lively. With Chara actually talking like a normal person, Jeremiah realized that Chara was in fact a girl.

Jeremiah wanted to tell her what he thought of the joke (his opinion of it was quite low) but he remembered that he had much more important things to worry about at the moment. So he ignored his desire to rant at her and instead asked. "Do you know where we are? I was just at the monastery with my teacher when I suddenly showed up here."

Chara raised an eyebrow, her cheerful disposition fading slightly. "Pretty sure that was just a memory you were dreaming about." Jeremiah's eyes widened and he asked her what did she mean. She rolled her eyes at this question, her cheerfulness now gone and replaced by very mild annoyance. "You fell down a hole and met me. Then you proceeded to ignore me when I tried to help you out and almost got yourself killed by a talking flower. Actually, you would've definitely died if my mo- I mean Toriel didn't help."

Jeremiah was confused for a few seconds before the memories hit him like a truck.

It took him a few minutes to gather his bearings, but once he did, he glared at Chara. "You're not real." He stated coldly. This caused Chara to groan and mutter something about stupid humans. He was just about to turn and walk away, but he stopped once Chara snapped her fingers and declared. "I know a way to prove to you that I'm real." Jeremiah was just about scoff at her, but she continued before he got a chance to. "I know things you don't. I can tell you about those things, so once you find out about them yourself, you would know that I'm real. Because if I'm just a figment of your imagination, how can I know something you don't?"

That was enough to get Jeremiah to stop. He looked Chara up and down suspiciously and slowly asked. "What sort of things?" Chara smiled slightly. "I can tell you who saved you when you were unconscious." Jeremiah had to admit that he had no possible way to know about someone he never met before. He shrugged. "Sure. If you can tell me that I'll give you a chance." Chara's smile widened and she did a fist pump (the fist pump just confused Jeremiah, because he had no idea what it meant). "Ok, first things first. Her name is Toriel and she-" Chara was interrupted by Jeremiah suddenly vanishing.

* * *

Jeremiah was surprised. "Where's did she go?" He asked himself, because as far as he was concerned Chara was the one to suddenly vanish. He was answered by a giggle that seemed to come from nowhere. "Aww, I didn't know you actually cared about me." Jeremiah rolled his eyes and Chara continued, now sounding slightly more serious. "To actually answer your question, I didn't go anywhere, your the one who decided to wake up." Jeremiah was confused by that until he noticed several things at once.

To begin with, the darkness around him wasn't nearly as thick compared to earlier, and he could even make several shapes in the dark. He also realized that he wasn't standing anymore, he was laying down on something soft. He wasn't sure what he was laying on, it certainly wasn't the straw mattress he usually slept on. He tried to think of what it could possibly be for a few minutes, before deciding since he's already humoring Chara until he had definitive proof she was just a voice in his head, he might as well ask her. "Chara do you have any idea what I'm laying on right now?"

Chara snorted and replied teasingly. "It's a bed, you dingus." Jeremiah could speak ancient English fairly fluently, but he had never heard the word, "Dingus," before. He thought it was safe to guess based off Chara's tone of voice it wasn't anything nice. He laid there, slightly annoyed and trying to come up with a good comeback. Eventually, he realized he couldn't come up with one, so he gave up. "It's too soft is what it is." He angrily mumbled as he sat up on the bed. He then ignored her snickering and began to study one of the strange shapes in the dark. After spending several minutes trying to make out the shape, he realized it was a cupboard. After that, it wasn't too hard to figure out the rest of the shapes were other pieces of furniture and a door.

He sat there a little longer, unsure of what to do next. Chara, sensing his apprehension, spoke up. "I could tell you some more things about Toriel besides her name. That way, you won't have any excuses when you see that I'm right." Jeremiah sighed. "Go ahead, it's not like I'm doing anything else right now." So Chara began to tell him all about this, "Toriel," woman. According to Chara, Toriel was a nice lady, albeit slightly overbearing, who liked to bake pies and tell puns. Jeremiah tried to ask Chara what Toriel looked like, but Chara claimed he wouldn't believe her. Jeremiah thought that was foolish, because he already didn't believe her. He was just hoping that by disproving Chara's claims she would leave him alone.

After spending some time describing Toriel to him, Chara suddenly changed subjects. "Can you leave this room and meet Toriel already, I'm bored." Jeremiah raised an eyebrow at the sudden change in subjects. "You promise to leave me alone once I prove you wrong?" Chara snorted. "Sure, but you have to promise you won't ignore me again after you meet Toriel." He was about to agree but found himself hesitating. He couldn't help but worry about the implications that having another person inside his head would mean, would that mean she was some sort of demon? She hasn't told him to do anything bad… yet. But what else could she be, people didn't just get stuck in other people's minds like this. "I'm pretty sure I'm a ghost. Boo!" Interrupted Chara far too cheerfully. Jeremiah was surprised by the interruption at first, but once he gathered his wits he just rolled his eyes again. "Ghosts don't exist, you either go straight to heaven or hell."

Despite saying those words with conviction in his voice, a small part of him doubted them as an absolute. That part of him recalled first Samuel chapter twenty eight, in which Saul, the first king of Israel, had a witch summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel for advice in the coming battle. Of course, Jeremiah knew the summoning only resulted in Samuel reaffirming God's future punishment against Saul, but it did imply that such a thing may be possible. Then again, other verses implied such things as necromancy and speaking to the dead were impossible, but Jeremiah supposed such things could happen if God made it so. Which would mean if Chara's claim of being a ghost were true, that would mean God decided to put her spirit inside his head for some unknown reason.

He shook his head, it was far too early to be worrying about such things, he still didn't even know if Chara was real or not. So with a sigh, he answered. "I won't ignore you if that happens… unless you turn out to be a demon." Somehow, despite not being able to see her, he knew Chara was shrugging. "Fair enough." With that, he pulled the blankets away from him and hopped off the bed.

He was quite surprised when his left foot went through something cold and slimy once his feet touched the ground. Chara gasped and said in a rather shocked and appalled manner. "You just ruined mo- I mean, Toriel's pie. You monster." He looked down and saw that he had indeed just ruined what seemed to be some sort of pastry. If Chara was to be believed, that was more than likely one of those butterscotch cinnamon pies Toriel supposedly loves to make. Regardless of whether or not it was a pie, or if Toriel was the one who made it, obviously someone must've saved him and left him that pastry. So he couldn't help but feel guilty about the fact he ruined it. Chara muttered some drivel about sins crawling up his back in her creepy monotone voice from earlier. Jeremiah just ignored that little piece of commentary.

He also tried to ignore the travesty he had just created, but when he took a step forward he got bits of the pastry all over the floor. "Damn it." He angrily muttered to himself before smacking the side of his head. "Don't curse." He looked around the dark room, straining his eyes for anything that could clean up his mess. Eventually he saw it in a dark corner of the room between some sort of box and an odd unlit lamp, his robe. He was just about to walk over and grab it, before remembering what happened last time. So instead of walking towards it, he began to try hopping on his one clean leg towards his robes. Try being the keyword in the last sentence. He had only managed to hop once before immediately falling face first onto the ground. Chara let out a bark of laughter while he just gave a pitiful moan of pain. He slowly looked up, seeing he was now right in front of his robe. He felt the blood begin to trickle from his nose. Chara immediately stopped laughing and asked him if he was ok, he just ignored the question and angrily grabbed his robe with one hand, using the other to pinch his nose to stop the bleeding. He then pulled himself into a sitting position and began to use his robe to clean off his foot before cleaning off the floor.

After spending a few minutes cleaning the floor, Jeremiah heard a low growl. He jumped slightly upon hearing it and his eyes darted around the room, searching for any possible coyotes or mountain lions that could've broken in. (He still remembered that night when a coyote bit brother Josias, poor man contracted rabies and died shortly after. On the plus side he got to try meat for once, but he thought the coyote was a little bit on the chewy side.) He heard the growl again, but instead of causing him to panic, it just caused him to sigh. "It's just my stomach," he told himself before letting out a small chuckle. "If only I didn't step in my food." His eyes then landed upon the strange pastry. It was currently a mashed up and leaky mess. He let out a sad sigh at the sight and his stomach growled again. "Just eat the damn pie!" Jeremiah jumped slightly at Chara's sudden shouting. But once he gathered his wits, he pointed out the obvious. "Didn't you just watch me put my foot right through it? Eating it now couldn't possibly be healthy." He could feel Chara rolling her eyes at him. "I just had to watch Toriel spend a couple hours trying to scrub the dirt off you. I'm pretty sure your foot is cleaner than it has ever been before. Seriously, have you ever even taken a bath before? Because you were covered in filth." Jeremiah blushed and quietly muttered. "Everyone at the monastery made sure to get bathed at least three times a month."

Jeremiah hoped that would satisfy Chara, because that was far above the hygienic standards in Murisuna. Water was rare and could be used for better things, like drinking and watering plants after all. But his hopes appeared to be in vain once Chara began to make gagging noises. He decided it would be best for his self esteem if he just ignored her for the next few minutes, she was just a delusion of the mind after all. Out of curiosity, he lifted his foot up and examined it. It was far cleaner than he ever remembered it being. His stomach growled once again, and that was the last thing needed for him to make his decision.

He slowly lifted the plate up. He eyed the strange, mushy, pastry sitting on the plate and shrugged. He took an experimental bite of the pastry, the taste was a far cry to the stale bread he was used to eating back home. This was far sweeter than anything he had tasted before, even honey, and it even had a slight hint of spice to it. So that's why he almost immediately spit it back out. "Why in the world would anyone make something so sweet?" Chara began to sputter in indignation before screaming something about sacrilege, but he was still ignoring her. He placed the plate back on the ground and quietly resolved to ask whoever saved him for one more thing, some nice hard bread, maybe some water too. He would have asked for butter as well, but he didn't want to push his blessings.

He smiled at the thought of some normal tasting food. But as he imagined how good it would taste, he felt an odd emotion he couldn't quite name begin to well up inside him. It felt like he wouldn't let anything stop him from getting proper food. He paused and tried to think of the word, at least until Chara gave it to him. "I believe the word you're looking for is **determination**." He perked up once he heard this. "**Determination**?" He muttered the word out experimentally. A few seconds ticked by and he smiled and muttered out the word again. That word seemed to fit what he felt perfectly.

So filled with **determination **to get normal tasting food, he finished cleaning up his mess before standing up and making his way towards the door.

Once he reached it, it took him a little bit to find the handle. When he finally found the handle, he pulled it down and pushed the door open. On the other side of the door was a dark hallway. "I wonder why there isn't any candles?" He asked himself as he stepped into the hallway. He was answered by a sudden flash of blinding light that filled the hallway. Jeremiah normally would've marveled over such an oddity, but he was far too busy falling down on account of his sudden blindness to care.

He spent the next few minutes sitting on the ground, trying to rub the pain and blindness away. Meanwhile, Chara was laughing at his misfortune.

Once he was able to properly see again, he was able to worry about the mountain lion in the room. "Where in the world did that light come from?" He asked himself worriedly. He hadn't seen any windows when he first looked at the hallway, but it was dark. He was just about to look up and see if there were any windows, when Chara interjected. "First off, why would there be windows in a house underneath a mountain? And second, haven't you seen a lightbulb before? I know you apparently don't bathe wherever you're from, but I would hope they at least would have electricity."

Jeremiah was just about to point out that the idea of a house underneath a mountain was silly in of itself, when he realized something very important important about what she had said. "Wait, did you just say that light came from a lightbulb?" He could feel Chara's surprise by the suddenness of the question. "Yes. Also, I guess I should also apologize for not warning you about the automatic lights." Chara's voice was hesitant as she said this. He didn't pay her apology any mind however, because as soon as she said yes he looked up and couldn't believe what he was seeing. All along the yellow walls of the hallway were glowing lamps.

He almost immediately shot up from the ground and stared at one. He ignored the strain it caused his eyes and instead focused on what lay on the other side of the glass. Instead of a flame, there was a little glass… bulb of light. "I can't believe there would be such a priceless relic of the old world down here of all places." He muttered to himself. "Old world?" Chara asked but he just ignored her, he was far too captivated by the miracle in front of him.

He was shaken out of his stupor by the feeling of something warm in his hands. He looked up and realized he had his hands clasped around the lightbulb. He must've reached out to touch it without realizing. He knew he shouldn't be holding something so precious, but it's gentle warmth almost seemed to be inviting him to hold it. But eventually he came to his senses and let go of the light. He took a few steps away from it and suddenly found himself very interested in seeing his savior now, at the very least to see what sort of person would choose to live underneath a mountain, if they knew how to make and power light bulbs.

"Seriously, what's the big deal about lightbulbs?" Chara asked him exasperatedly. Jeremiah didn't bother with answering her question, instead he marched down the hallway. He passed by a staircase that was right across the hallway from a door. "That door leads to the rest of the ruins, and those stairs led to the only exit of the ruins." Chara said as he passed them by. Eventually, Jeremiah found himself at an entrance to another room. He was just about to enter when he heard something that caused him to stop. Someone, probably a woman based off the sound of their voice, was humming lightly inside the next room.

The tune they were humming seemed to be bright and cheery at first. But the longer he listened to it, Jeremiah couldn't help but notice a hint of something melancholy in the song. He stood there quietly, not really wanting to interrupt whoever was making the noise. He didn't notice how he had begun to hum as well, although much quieter and way more offtune than the original.

Finally, the song ended and all went quiet in the other room. That silence was quickly destroyed by the sound of an older woman speaking happily. "That song was simply beautiful Napstablook!" There was a pause for about a minute before this, "Napstablook," person gave a reply. "Oh… you actually liked it? I normally make spooky music, but I figured I should make something for you. I'm glad you enjoyed it… unless you're just lying to make me feel better." Napstablook let out a sad sigh. "That's what you're doing, isn't it?" Napstablook didn't sound accusatory or angry, he just sounded sad and accepting.

Despite knowing not to interrupt other people's conversations, Jeremiah didn't want Napstablook to think so lowly of such a wonderful song he made. "I thought it was a wonderful song." The other room became suddenly silent. There was no noise for several minutes and Jeremiah couldn't help but worry if he made a mistake. After a few awkward minutes of silence, Napstablook spoke up. "But you weren't wearing any headphones. How could you possibly know what the song sounded like?" Napstablook's voice was blank and questioning. Jeremiah had no idea what headphones were, but he was quick to respond anyway. "I could hear the lady in the room with you humming it." Napstablook was far quicker to respond this time, albeit with significantly less words. "Oh."

The awkward silence came back with a vengeance, lasting much longer than before. Thankfully, after what seemed like forever, Napstablook spoke up again. "Oh, wait… you're that human Toriel saved, right? I… I should leave." Normally Jeremiah would have protested this, but he was far too concerned about two different things Napstablook just said. The first and most important of those things being the name of the person who saved him. Because if the person who saved him was really named Toriel, that would mean... "Take that! I told you I was real!" At the very least Chara was happy to hear that name. Jeremiah just sighed sadly. "You sure are." He muttered quietly to himself. On the plus side, he now knew he wasn't insane, so there was that.

Then there was what Napstablook had called him, he had called him "That human." Jeremiah certainly didn't expect any of them to know his name, so he would've understood being called that boy, or even that kid. But what he certainly didn't expect to be called, was "That human." Seriously, what else would he be? "Wait you haven't heard any of the legends?" Chara suddenly asked, sounding quite surprised. Jeremiah raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "No I haven't. I've never bothered with learning the various tales that savages tell each other." This seemed to leave Chara utterly baffled and quiet. Jeremiah was quite thankful for the second thing, because he was now able to focus on Toriel and Napstablook's conversation, or rather their lack thereof.

The other room was silent yet again, and this time the silence was ended by Toriel. "Oh dear, he left his headphones." She sighed before continuing. "I suppose I'll just have to return them next time I see him." She then let out a gasp and he heard the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching. "I'm so sorry, my child, I almost forgot that you were out here." He was just about to tell her not to worry about it, when she stepped into his view.

The words died before they could even leave his lips. Instead of speaking, he stared in shock at the near seven-foot tall bipedal goat woman, who was smiling at him. Her smile revealed her long and sharp teeth.

Seemingly ignoring his shock, she continued speaking in a rather chipper manner. "My name is Toriel. I am the caretaker of these ruins and this is my home. What is your name, my child?" Jeremiah was in such a state of shock, he never even noticed the fact he was speaking. "My name is Jeremiah."

* * *

**(AN) That chapter took me a long time to make, it's totally because I've poured my heart and soul into it, and not because I got distracted with playing the outer worlds. But in all seriousness, I really do think this chapter turned out well, thank God for that. I hope anyone reading this gets some enjoyment out of it. Also any and all reviews are welcomed and appreciated, even if you absolutely hate this story please leave a review and let me know any thoughts or criticisms you may have. I fully acknowledge that I'm not very good at writing, and I full-heartedly believe criticism to be a crucial part in how I could improve as a writer. And being fully honest here, I really enjoy seeing what people think of my work, regardless if they like it or not. God bless.**


	3. Matthew 10:16

Jeremiah sat there, dumbly staring at the warm loaf of bread in front of him. Next to the bread was a small plate that had a stick of butter on top of it. There was a dull knife sticking out of the butter. Finally, sitting right next to his hand was a glass of water. Somehow, both the glass and water were clear and cold.

All Jeremiah could feel while staring at the food was disbelief, that wasn't on account of the food, however. The reason why he felt such a way was sitting across the table from him, smiling. "I hope you enjoy your food, Jeremiah." He just barely stopped himself from wincing when Toriel suddenly spoke up. Her voice was far too cheery to come from something that looked like it could easily rip him to shreds."Come on, if she wanted to kill you she would've done it already." Chara sounded rather fed up about his nervousness towards Toriel. He couldn't help but admit Chara had good reason to be fed up. He knew that she probably wasn't going to hurt him, and even if she did, that would mean he would go to heaven, so there was no real reason to be nervous. But despite how hard he tried to ignore it, there was still something about a seven-foot-tall goat woman who had sharp claws and fangs that made him nervous.

Despite all those thoughts and feelings, his body worked on autopilot. He cut himself a small piece of bread before smearing some butter onto it. He then took a bite of it and his eyes widened. The bread seemed to melt in his mouth alongside all of his worries. He gave Toriel an honest smile and said. "It tastes really good Miss Toriel." This seemed to cause her smile to widen. "I'm very glad my child." Jeremiah blushed, was he that worked up just because he was hungry? He certainly hoped that wasn't the case.

Jeremiah spent the next few minutes quietly eating the bread. It wasn't anything like the bread he had eaten at home. Toriel's bread was soft and warm, as opposed to the bread back home, which was almost always cold and stale. Jeremiah went to cut himself another slice, but stopped once he realized that he had managed to eat half the loaf. Toriel seemed to realize his hesitance and said. "I've already had my lunch. You can have the rest of it, Jeremiah." A small part of his brain wondered when he had told Toriel his name, but he just ignored it. He was too busy wondering if it would be considered a sin to eat an entire loaf of bread so as not to offend one's host. He didn't want to be a glutton, but he also didn't want to be rude either. Eventually, he came up with a compromise. "I'm not hungry anymore Miss Toriel. Do you mind if I save this for later though?"

Toriel nodded. "Of course, Jeremiah." She then got out of her chair and made her way to the kitchen. She dug through multiple drawers and cabinets before producing a strange paper-thin silver sheet. She brought it back to the table and began to wrap it around the half-eaten loaf. Jeremiah stared at the wrapping with confusion, unsure what the silvery wrapping was. Chara sighed. "It's tinfoil." That didn't really answer Jeremiah's question, so he began to debate with himself on whether it was metal or paper. "Pretty sure its metal," Chara said tiredly. Jeremiah immediately stopped his mental debate. "Can you hear what I'm thinking?" He slowly thought to himself in slight terror. Chara laughed. "Yep." Jeremiah shuddered, thankfully Toriel never noticed.

Once she was done wrapping the bread, Toriel sat back down in the chair. "I imagine you have plenty of questions." Jeremiah blinked in surprise at the suddenness of Toriel's statement. He shifted in his seat, suddenly feeling slightly uncomfortable. Sure he had plenty of questions, but he was worried that some might offend her. But as soon as he started to worry, the same warm feeling he felt while eating the bread flowed through him, melting all of his worries away. He let out a relieved sigh and looked at Toriel. "I have a few." He was surprised by the sudden confidence his voice possessed, but that warm feeling made sure he didn't worry about it. He waited a moment to see if Toriel had anything to say, she didn't, so he continued. "The first of those being, and I'm not trying to be rude, is what exactly are you? You certainly aren't human."

Toriel didn't seem offended by the question at all, she actually laughed at it. "No, I'm definitely not a human. I am a monster, specifically a boss monster." Jeremiah raised an eyebrow and asked. "What exactly is a monster?" It was Toriel's turn to raise an eyebrow. "You haven't heard any of the legends?" Jeremiah was slightly annoyed by people asking him about the tales of savages twice in one day. However, instead of telling her his opinion on legends, he simply shook his head. She sighed. "Well then, that means I'll have to do a whole lot more explaining then." She then visibly brightened. "Which is a good thing, I've always enjoyed teaching others." Jeremiah smiled as his opinion of Toriel rose even higher than before.

Suddenly, Toriel got out of her chair, confusing Jeremiah. She then made her way towards a bookshelf, and he suddenly understood what she was doing. She pulled a rather large book out of the shelf and brought it towards the table. She placed it between them and he saw the title. "A brief history of Monsters and the underground." Underneath the title was Toriel's name, which was apparently just Toriel. "She does have a last name, its Dreemurr." He would've normally asked Chara why Toriel wouldn't write down her last name, but he was far too busy staring at Toriel in amazement. "You wrote a book?" He almost shouted. Toriel shot him a slightly smug smirk. "I've been living down here alone for quite a while now, I needed something to do."

She then opened the book and began to read. "A long time ago, in days of yore. Two races ruled over the Earth: Monsters and Humans. One day, war broke out between the two races. After a long battle, the humans were victorious. They sealed us monsters underground with a magic spell." Jeremiah frowned as she read the book. The book seemed rather light on details such as dates after all. But his frown only deepened when she mentioned magic. She noticed his reaction and asked. "Is something wrong?"

Normally he would've just shaken his head, there was no reason to be rude after all. But that same warm feeling overtook him yet again and caused him to blurt out what he was thinking. "Yes, I do have a problem. That problem being that your book seems rather light on details." Toriel looked surprised at first, but she quickly adopted a pleased expression. "That is very astute of you Jeremiah. It is indeed very short on details about the war, but that's pretty much all of the facts we really have. If it makes you feel any better, the war happened long before the first of the Europeans arrived on the continent."

Jeremiah sat there in thought for a moment, before nodding. "That would certainly explain why there is no mention of your people in any of our history books. But that still doesn't answer my earlier question, what exactly is a monster?" Toriel was quiet for a moment, as if in thought. Eventually, she answered him. "Well to make it as simple as possible. Humans are made up entirely of physical matter, such as flesh and blood, so their souls are tied closely to this world than us monsters. Monsters, on the other hand, are almost entirely composed of magic, so our souls are tied to the unseen realms of magic. So in this world of physical matter, humans are far stronger than us monsters in almost any circumstance."

Jeremiah couldn't help but frown at all the talk about souls, magic, and unseen realms. He wasn't sure what any of it meant. Well, he knew what all of those words meant, but he wasn't sure what Toriel meant by them. "Did you just say monsters were made of magic Miss Toriel?" He asked hesitantly. She just nodded and smiled patiently at him. He sat there, trying to absorb the idea. Chara sighed and interrupted his thoughts. "It's not like witchcraft." She said, sounding bored. He was about to ask Chara what magic actually was then, but then he realized Toriel would probably know more about it than Chara. So he asked her instead. "What exactly do you mean by magic Miss Toriel?" Toriel didn't immediately respond, instead, she looked side to side, as if she was making sure nobody was there. This confused Jeremiah, but his confusion only increased once she lifted one of her paws in the air and shot him a smile as if she was sharing some great secret with him. Then out of nowhere, her paw was set ablaze.

If it wasn't for the warm feeling suddenly overtaking him again, he would've tried to put the fire out with his half-full glass of water. But he didn't, instead, the warm feeling forced him to sit there calmly and realize her paw wasn't actually on fire. The flame was actually floating an inch or two above her paw. He stared at the flame blankly. His mind was busy thinking of all the stories he's ever heard of witchcraft before. Stories of people cutting their own limbs off in the hopes of using a spell, entire villages sacrificed in the name of some demon, and an ancient story of a witch luring in two children in the hopes of eating them.

The warm feeling tired to stop these thoughts and worries. But all it could do was dull the feeling of his imminent peril, not his knowledge of it. So feeling no panic, but knowing he should, he told Tor- the witch. "I'm sorry, but I must lay back down." The fire instantly vanished and the witch looked at him with mock concern. "Are you alright Jeremiah?" He suddenly realized he couldn't remember ever telling her his name. "I should be. I believe I am just tired at the moment." Toriel gave him a small smile and replied in that motherly tone of hers. "Let me know whenever you're feeling better and we could maybe do some reading together."

Jeremiah just nodded at her, before getting out of the chair and calmly walking out of the room. He supposed that was one benefit to the warmth, (which he was now almost certain was some sort of spell) it stopped him from running away in a panic. Which would be bad, because doing so would reveal to the witch he caught onto her scheme.

He passed by the staircase and door, he was tempted to either just rip the door open and run outside, or to try bolting down the stairs. Two things stopped him however, the first and foremost of those being that the witch would notice the noise and track him down. The second being that he had no idea where his knapsack was. Most people might consider worrying about a knapsack in a life or death situation silly, but they would quickly change their opinion if all of their worldly possessions were inside it. Suddenly out of the blue, Chara answered his question. "It's inside your room, right behind the shoe box." Jeremiah was surprised by Chara suddenly speaking up after being quiet for so long, but he gave no reaction. "And how would you know that?" He asked, slightly curious. Chara sighed as he grabbed the door handle and pulled the door open. "As I said before, I had to watch her basically nurse you back to health."

He took a step into the room and was about to look for his knapsack when Chara let out an irritated chuckle. "Are you really going to just leave her like this?" Her voice was barely above a whisper and was filled with an emotion he couldn't quite identify. He raised an eyebrow at the silly question. "Of course I am. She's obviously a witch and is planning to murder me." Chara let out a huff. "You really believe if she was going to kill you, she wouldn't have done it already? You were about to die and she went out of her way to save you. Not only that, she's spent two days trying to nurse you back to health. Can you please explain to me why she would do all that if she wanted to kill you?" As she spoke, her voice slowly picked up in volume to the point she was almost yelling. Jeremiah was now able to identify the unknown emotion in her voice, it was anger.

He winced as she asked her final question. Her logic was hard to argue against, to the point Jeremiah wondered if he was overreacting. But then he remembered the foreign warmth he felt, and the fact Toriel confessed to using magic. Then again, maybe the warmth he felt was something natural, or maybe even something divine? It hadn't actually done anything to harm him, honestly, it had been quite helpful. It was also possible her claim of being able to use magic was just a translation error. There was no logical reason to expect somebody from a secret civilization that existed since before the Europeans arrived, to be able to speak perfect ancient English. Then again, there was no reason to think somebody from such a civilization could be able to speak ancient English at all, let alone be able to have a conversation with a fluent speaker of the language and only make one mistake. Plus the fire she summoned would be hard to explain away as anything besides witchcraft.

He let out a sad sigh. "Chara, I'm sorry to say this, but all the evidence seems to point towards Toriel being a witch." He really was sorry to say it. Despite her very intimidating appearance, he had started to think of her as somebody wise and kind. But he supposed that could have been the work of some sort of spell. Chara just scoffed. "So what if she is a witch? Why can't a witch want to help someone?" Jeremiah rolled his eyes at the question. "A witch wouldn't want to help someone because witches are evil." He hoped that would be enough to satisfy Chara so he could end this conversation, but he soon found out it was far from enough. "What the hell type of logic is that? Nobody's just pure evil, everyone has some sort of good in them! So even if she was a witch, and we're using your witches are all evil logic, couldn't she do something good at least once?"

Jeremiah was starting to get annoyed. Why couldn't she get it through her thick skull that witches are just evil? "Oh, so my skull's thick now?" Jeremiah cringed at her sharp and scathing tone. "I'm sorry, I forgot that you could hear what I was thinking." He could tell that Chara didn't believe his apology, but she didn't make any mention of it. Instead, she resumed her rant about the original topic, Toriel.

Jeremiah tried to debate her for a few more minutes but eventually came to the conclusion that there would be no changing her mind. So instead of standing there, debating the morality of sorcery, he decided to just find his knapsack. He sighed and asked. "Where did you say my knapsack was?" Chara was silent, yet he could feel the smugness from her small victory radiating off her. "It's behind the shoebox and in front of Mr. Fluffy and Mr. Hope Killer." He was about to ask her who in the world was Mr. Fluffy and Mr. Hope Killer, but Chara answered his question before he could even ask. "Their stuffed animals. Please don't ask why they're named that." Jeremiah felt surprised at how embarrassed she sounded, so he didn't ask.

He walked towards the shoe box and looked behind it. Just like Chara said, there were his knapsack and two large stuffed lambs. One of the lambs was the same shade of red as the walls of the room, while the other lamb was just white. Despite their color differences, they shared a lot in common. Like the fact they both had two black button eyes or the fact, they were both covered in a thin coat of dust. As he looked at the two lambs, a sudden feeling of sadness and longing began to creep upon him. He wondered why two old stuffed lambs could inspire such feelings in him, but he quickly realized they weren't his feelings, they were Chara's. He was about to ask what was wrong, but yet again she answered before he could ask. "Please just grab your knapsack and leave." Her voice was barely above a whisper, yet even he could detect a hint of bitterness in it. But there was a hint of something else, it was almost like she was pleading with him. This just confused Jeremiah, didn't she just waste both their time arguing about Toriel, what caused such a sudden shift in attitude? He found his eyes being drawn to the shoebox for some unexplained reason. He looked at all the shoes inside it, taking note of their many shapes and sizes. He then let out a gasp as he realized what Chara must've realized first. The shoes… they were the shoes of children who fell down here before him, children who Toriel murdered for some occult ritual."It's not that Jeremiah." He winced internally when he heard Chara's almost broken sounding voice. "What is it then?" He asked her, genuinely worried for the ghost inside his head. Which was a situation he never would've thought or believed he would be in (not that he fully believed it even now). Chara was silent for a moment, but she eventually answered his question. "It's just… there's too many memories for me here. I thought I could've handled it better than this, but I don't think I can take it much longer."

Her explanation caused a dozen different questions to spark inside his mind, but out of pity, he never asked her any of them. Instead, he began to try answering them on his own using the information he had."Chara is a voice inside my head who claims to be a ghost. Chara knows a lot of stuff about Toriel. Chara apparently has too many memories of this place. Toriel lives here and is a witch. Possible conclusions? Chara is some sort of demon or spell that's working with Toriel." He paused, considering that possibility. It seemed like the most realistic explanation. It wouldn't require him to believe in ghosts, and it would explain how she knew so much about Toriel and defended her so much. But he then thought about how miserable Chara felt, and decided that demons and spells probably couldn't feel emotions like that. So he decided to file that under a possibility he would need to pray about later. "Assuming that she is actually a ghost, maybe she used to live here? That would probably mean Toriel murdered her, but why would Chara defend her murderer?" He took a minute to think of a possible answer. "Toriel could've used some sinister spell to make her forget being sacrificed. Yes, that makes sense, Chara would only remember the act Toriel put up." This theory, while admittedly seeming very silly, made some semblance of sense. So Jeremiah decided it would be best to go forward under this assumption, until he can prove or disprove it.

"I should probably tell Chara about this after we leave." He thought to himself as he opened the door. "You forgot I can hear what your thinking." He jumped slightly when Chara spoke up, her voice an odd mix of sad and teasing. His eyes darted to the floor. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to hear any of that." Chara gave him a halfhearted chuckle. "Don't worry about it, honestly it was kinda funny." Jeremiah started to walk, but kept his eyes facing towards the ground. "What was so funny?" Somehow, he could feel Chara smiling at him, yet he could also tell it was a hollow smile. "You wouldn't get it." With that, they both became silent until he reached a sort of crossroads. On one side of the hall was a wooden door, on the opposite side was a staircase. "The exit to the ruins is downstairs. If I was you I would tell Toriel I was leaving, but I-" Before Chara could even finish speaking, Jeremiah began to walk down the stairs. Chara sighed. "I knew that was going to happen."

* * *

He was at the second to last step when he heard Toriel shouting from upstairs. "Where are you, Jeremiah?" He froze, hoping that she didn't realize he was down here. He waited there for what seemed like forever. He knew waiting was stupid, but he wasn't sure if she could hear him walking down the steps. So he stood there, unsure of what to do now. But Toriel answered the problem for him, by suddenly shouting. "Don't go down there Jeremiah!" Which was followed by the sound of someone running above him. This managed to wake his legs back up, causing him to bolt down the remaining stairs and through the hallway.

Unfortunately for Jeremiah, he wasn't athletic in the least. So despite his head start, he didn't get too far down the hall before he felt a paw land on his shoulder, causing him to stop. There was no point in fleeing anymore, after all, his fate was sealed. He could hear her gasping for air while trying to speak to him, but that seemed to slowly melt into his subconscious. Instead, his mind was busy thinking of countless ways Toriel could murder him. Possibilities like being slowly skinned alive, or maybe being ripped to shreds with her claws and teeth, caused fear to began bubbling up within him. But thankfully that foreign warmth flowed through him once again, turning his ever increasing distress into a calm acceptance. He sighed. "Don't be stupid. It doesn't matter how I die or how painful it is, all that matters is that'll I be with my redeemer soon, and they'll be no more pain or tears."

"You're not going to die." Chara muttered. He just ignored her, instead focusing his thoughts on what life would be like once he was freed from this wretched world. But his thoughts of wearing a pure white robe came to a crashing halt once he considered the fact he hadn't even converted anyone yet. While he was sure he would be let into heaven based off Jesus's sacrifice for him. He really didn't want to face the Father and be told he hadn't really done anything for the Divine Trinity, that would be embarrassing. He lamented this fact, but tried to comfort himself with the idea that if God was going to use him to convert people, he wouldn't have fallen down into this witch's lair. But as he thought about that, a thought that surely must've come from the divine himself struck him. "You have someone you can convert right behind you."

The thought seemed brilliant to Jeremiah. It would explain almost all of the insanity that happened to him, all of it would be a part of God's plan. It meant he fell down here to show Toriel God's divine light, or at the very least give her a warning.

* * *

She had been standing there, patiently waiting for an answer for quite a while now. She had tried asking him why he had run down here in such a hurry, but after several minutes he still hadn't answered. She was actually starting to get worried about the child's mental well-being. So she felt relieved when he wiggled out of her grip and turned around, giving her a smile. But that relief quickly turned into confusion when he spoke. "I know that you're a witch and planning to murder me. So there's no need to lie." Toriel started at the child, rendered speechless by his claim. "I also know that you murdered other children before me. I believe one of them was named-" He suddenly winced and stopped himself. He was slow to compose himself and muttered. "I guess you wouldn't care about hearing their name."

He then let out a sad sigh. "I realize that there's nothing I can really do to stop you from sacrificing me to some demon. But I have two requests for you. The first being to allow me the chance to give you the best news you'll ever hear. This news can deliver you from the demon that you serve, the one who has trapped you in such a monstrous form. My second request is that if you for whatever reason, reject this news of redeeming grace, please make my death quick, so I can see my master sooner." He then closed his eyes and seemed to brace himself. Toriel just stared at him.

Being honest, she was completely puzzled on how to handle such a bizarre and horrific scenario. All of the other children who fell were never this… paranoid. They were all so trusting and eager to see the world around them. But Jeremiah was obviously different, she was able to guess that as soon as she met him. Getting called a demon and having a glass bottle flung at you made such things obvious. Him going into shock when he saw her after waking up only confirmed it. What made this confrontation so utterly baffling was that it happened so soon, she had just casted a calming spell onto the bread she made him after all. The spell was supposed to have lasted for a week, by then he would've hopefully been comfortable enough around her to avoid this very scenario from happening.

But here they were, her staring at him worriedly, while he stood there silently, as if he was some sort of sacrificial lamb. She wasn't sure if she would've preferred him trying to kill her out of his paranoia instead of just accepting his supposed fate. It was disturbing to Toriel, seeing a child so young just accepting their death like that. A small part of her couldn't help but wonder if the others acted the same way. She shook her head, trying to push the disturbing thought out her mind. It wouldn't do anyone any good if she kept thinking about the past instead of helping the child in front of her. But that brought about another problem, how would she calm him down. She gave it a moment's thought, before concluding she should ask him what exactly made him believe she was a witch.

So she slowly made her way towards him and placed a paw on his shoulder. She frowned slightly when she saw him flinch at her touch, so she pulled her paw away. She let out a sad sigh and gathered her wits. "What makes you think I'm a witch?" Her voice was soft and gentle. It was Jeremiah's turn to sigh as he opened his eyes. "I've already told you, there's no need to lie." Toriel wanted to let out a groan at his response, but she knew she had to be patient with the child. "Jeremiah, I'm really not a witch, nor am I planning to murder you. If I've done something to frighten you however, please let me know and I'll avoid doing it in the future."

Jeremiah's red eyes glared at her warily. "Fine, if you want me to explain how I figured this out, I will." She was surprised by the underlying venom in his voice. "I realized what you were as soon as you showed me that hellfire that even you confessed to be witchcraft." Toriel blinked and asked surprised. "Witchcraft? When did I ever claim it was that? I told you it was magic." Jeremiah rolled his eyes. "It's all the same. But let's get back on track. Once I realized what you were, that calming spell you cast upon me made itself obvious." Toriel was shocked that he noticed it, but she did her best to hide her reaction. Instead, in order to put his concerns to rest, she decided to explain why she cast that spell upon him. "I only used that spell to stop you from panicking once you woke back up."

Jeremiah's glare sharpened and the next words out of his mouth sounded far more venomous than before. "Of course you cast the spell to stop me from panicking. But the more important question is why would I have panicked in the first place?" He paused for a moment, appearing to give her a chance to answer. She was just about to tell him it was because of how unusual her appearance was, but as soon as she opened her mouth, he continued. "It's because you were planning to sacrifice me to some demon. I've read the reports about you and your satanic ilk. You savages go from town to town, butchering anyone who tries to stop you, anyone you capture is sacrificed to some demon you call a god in exchange for power." He then paused, seemingly trying to calm himself down. Toriel would've said something, but she was far too bewildered about all this talk of Demons and savages.

After a moment, he seemed to have calmed himself down. "I'm sorry if I lost my temper for a second." His voice was much less hateful sounding now. It was almost enough to give Toriel hope that this paranoid episode was over. But alas, the next words he spoke destroyed that hope. "But I suppose such anger is understandable when talking with a serial child murderer." Toriel's eyes widened in disbelief. "Child murderer?" She gasped. Jeremiah let out a sad sigh. "Can you please just drop the act so we can get this over with?" When she didn't immediately confess to multiple accounts of child murder, he continued. "I found all of those mismatched shoes in the room. They obviously all belonged to completely different kids, but you haven't even mentioned any of them. So by going through all of the facts I have logically, it makes what you want evident. Do I have to explain my logic to you again, or are you finally going to stop pretending?" When no response came, he continued.

"For starters, I know that using magic requires some deal with a demon, usually requiring some sort of sacrifice. Then I know you can use magic, which means you've made some sort of deal with something evil. Finally, there's the evidence that other children have stayed in your home before me, yet you haven't mentioned any of them once. So in conclusion, you're a witch who's made a deal with some sort of demon to sacrifice children, and you were planning to kill me as well."

Toriel just stared at him, unsure of what to say. But as she stood there, trying to think of a response, a thought suddenly struck her. "In a way, I have sacrificed them all." The thought left her paralyzed. "I let them leave my home, the only safe place in this whole damnable prison. I just let them all march out to their deaths, one by one, even though I knew what would happen. Even when some of them realized their mistake and tried to come back, I wouldn't let them back in. No matter how much they kicked or screamed at the door. I should've confronted Asgore after the first one, Emily. I could've easily deposed him and put an end to the madness. So why, why didn't I do anything? Was it because I want Asgore to win?" She felt something cold and disgusting well up within at the thought. She shook her head and felt something wet slide down her cheek. "No it's not that. It's because I'm a coward isn't it? I'm too afraid to face my people, let alone him." Then she burst into laughter.

* * *

Jeremiah stared at the clearly crazy women in front of him. That whole speech was meant to reveal to her the extent of her sins, then once she realized them, he would tell her about Jesus and how he can cleanse her sins away. Hopefully she would've accepted his master's blood and be saved from hellfire. Then again, Chara did warn him mid-speech that Toriel would probably just laugh all this off and let him go. Despite Chara's warning, he hadn't expected her to burst into laughter like this. He wanted to ask Toriel what sort of freak she was, because who laughs about murdering children like that, but he didn't, because that probably would be rude and unhelpful. He also wanted to run away, he probably wouldn't get another opportunity to escape, but he didn't, because he had a job to do. So he stood there, patiently waiting for the clearly psychopathic woman to calm down and stop laughing. Eventually, she did just that.

Toriel slowly straightened herself back up, Jeremiah took notice of how her eyes were watery. "You're right. I did practically kill them."

Jeremiah nodded, feeling a small measure of internal relief that he wasn't going to have to repeatedly explain the same thing over and over again. Chara, who had been silent since she yelled at him to not tell Toriel her name, didn't seem to share in this relief. "What?" She sounded quite confused and betrayed. Toriel, not being able to hear Chara, continued. "There were six other children who fell down here before you. I let each one of them leave the ruins, and every single one of them was killed."

Jeremiah's relief crumbled into dust. He was about to accuse her of shifting the blame, but she continued, seemingly ignoring him. "Every single one of them were murdered by Asgore, the king of Monsters and the Underground. Once you leave these ruins, he'll seek to murder you and claim your soul." Jeremiah's eyes widened. "Soul?" He asked in shock. "Father?" Chara's voice was barely above a whisper and sounded utterly crushed. He wanted to ask her a lot of questions about this supposed father of her's, but he decided, mostly based on the confusion and sadness coming from her, asking such a question wouldn't be the wisest of choices.. "Yes, your soul." Toriel answered. "He's already claimed six of them, his goal is seven." Jeremiah began to sputter, trying to come up with a response to all of this sudden and new information. Toriel just gave him a sad smile before suddenly wrapping him up in a hug. He tried to break free from her grip, but it was no use. "Please be safe my child." With that single sentence, she let go of the hug and began to walk towards the stairs. He looked at her, confused, and asked. "Where are you going?" She turned around, still wearing that sad smile. "Not where I should be going. If you still desire to leave me, the exit to the ruins is down that hall. Goodbye." Then, she walked up the stairs and out of his sight.

He stood there, utterly befuddled by what had just transpired. Chara was silent. He stared at the staircase for what seemed like forever, until eventually he turned around and walked away, not saying a single word.

He made his way down the hallway made of purple stone. The only noise to be heard was the sound of his shoes hitting the floor. The whole time, he couldn't help but wonder if he had been too harsh on Toriel. He was even starting to wonder if she was even a witch at all. Her reaction didn't seem that evil, at least to him.

But before he could make up his mind, he turned around a corner and saw a set of heavy doors. They were made of the same strange purple stone as the hallway, but he noticed something odd about the doors. They had a strange emblem carved into them. "It's called the Delta Rune. It's supposed to represent the angel of prophecy." Chara still sounded miserable and he had no desire to try prying answers from her. Instead, he just said. "Thanks." He couldn't help but smile when he felt Chara's mood improve slightly.

He made his way to the doors and placed both hands upon them. The stone felt cold. Right before he pushed them open, he couldn't help but wonder what lay beyond them. If Toriel had been telling the truth, that would mean there was an entire kingdom's worth of monsters. And every single one of them wanted to murder him and steal his soul, Lord knows for what purpose. He felt fear course through his veins at the thought, so he hesitated. "Should I just stay?" He asked himself. Sure Toriel could've been lying to keep him down here, but some part of him knew she was telling the truth. Then as if by divine will, he remembered a verse. "The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen." As he finished reciting the verse to himself, he realized how there was no need to worry about his soul. God's one and only son was nailed to a cross in order to save his soul, so how could anyone steal it away?

If Toriel had been telling the truth, she probably was just being a tad superstitious and actually just meant human sacrifice. In which case, he had no real reason to be afraid of what lay beyond the door, because his Lord could have him die at any time or any place. Also, his earlier thought towards Toriel still stood. He left the monastery to convert savages, and now he was in a place potentially filled with savages just waiting to be converted. Sure he messed up with Toriel, but he had every intention to return and try again. So, being filled with Determination to convert any human sacrificing savages, he pushed the doors open.

**(AN) Can't believe that I actually got this chapter finally done. It honestly feels like I've been writing this chapter for forever now. I'm proud to say this chapter has the highest word count of anything I've written so far. Also, here's a little bit of schedule for this story spanning the rest of the year. To begin with, I plan to remake chapter one because I personally find it unsatisfying. I also plan to release a mini-chapter that was originally meant to be a part of this one, sometime in December because I will be highly busy, holiday season and all.**

**I hope anyone reading this will enjoy this chapter, and please leave a review with any thoughts or criticisms, I highly appreciate them. God bless, Merry early Christmas**


	4. Job 7:14

Jeremiah wasn't sure what he was expecting to see on the other side of the doors. Being honest, he wasn't sure what he wanted to see on the other side of them.

But now that he saw what lay beyond them, he knew he hadn't expected or wanted to see it. "Why is there another hallway? I thought that door was supposed to lead out of the ruins." He complained half to himself and half to Chara. He wouldn't normally complain about something like this, but this hallway was stupidly long. Heck, he couldn't even see the end of the hallway. Chara sighed. "The exit is at the end of the hallway." Jeremiah decided to take Chara's word on that and started to walk down the straight and narrow path laid out ahead of him.

After several minutes of walking, Jeremiah could finally see what lay at the end of the hallway. It was a dark room illuminated by a single dim light. The light was coming from above and was only bright enough to light the center of the room. Interestingly enough, there seemed to be a patch of grass growing right where the light hit the ground. Jeremiah couldn't help but smile at the sight. "Is it not amazing how God could bring life and light to the darkest of places?" Chara, who was still in a funk, was just going to agree with whatever he said, but then she noticed something hiding within the grass. It took her a moment to realize what exactly it was, but once she did she swore and shouted. "Get out of there Jeremiah!"

Jeremiah jumped in surprise but quickly composed himself and frowned. "Chara that's not funny. Also, you really need to stop swearing." Chara was far too scared to bother arguing with Jeremiah, so she yelled at him instead. "Flowey is in there, run away before you get killed!" Jeremiah just raised an eyebrow. "Flowey?" For a single moment, his confusion managed to confuse Chara as well, but that moment passed quickly. "It's the flower that tried killing you earlier!"

Jeremiah cringed at the memory. "That wasn't a hallucination?" Chara didn't need to answer, because almost as soon as he asked it he noticed the vague outline of a flower hidden within the grass. He felt his determination to move forward slip for a moment. "Maybe I should just go back and try converting Toriel again and leave later?" He quickly dismissed the thought as cowardly. How could he turn his back on an entire kingdom of poor wretched lost sinners when confronted by a mere flower? Besides, this flower was obviously in need of Jesus, he had tried murdering him after all. So, filled with **determination **to save this flower's immortal soul, he made his way towards them. Chara yelled and called him an idiot with every step.

As he got closer to the flower, he was able to make out more and more detail. Like the fact he was glaring at him. He was too determined to let something like that stop him, so he just continued walking. He didn't stop until he was just a foot or two away from them. He put on his best fake smile and looked down at that hate-filled flower. He was about to try the same approach that he used with Toriel, but he remembered how that turned out. So he decided to be more polite about it this time. "Howdy, Mr. Flowey. I'm afraid that I never introduced myself last time we met, my name is-" He was interrupted by Flowey's sudden and loud laughter. Flowey laughed for quite a while, and Jeremiah couldn't help but be annoyed by the interruption. Once he finally stopped laughing, he looked up at Jeremiah. "I'm sorry about that, you just reminded me of an idiot I used to know." Even Jeremiah could tell the flower wasn't sorry in the slightest, but he decided to turn the other cheek and ignore it. "That's ok Mr. Flowey. But like I was trying to say earlier, my name is-" Flowey decided to interrupt him again. "I don't care what your name is. I'll just call you what you are." Jeremiah gritted his teeth, Chara's constantly yelling at him to run away didn't help his nerves at all. "And what would that be?" He asked Flowey in the sweetest voice he could muster, which was about as convincing as Flowey's.

Flowey just smiled at him. "An idiot." Jeremiah never noticed the little white pellets hurtling towards him. However, he did notice Chara yelling at him to dodge. Jeremiah had never dodged anything in his life before, and he had no idea what he was even supposed to be dodging, so he just flung himself onto the ground. In the end, that only bought him a few more seconds of time. He soon felt a searing pain course through his entire body.

His entire world seemed to crack all around him. He could hear Chara shouting at him to get back up, his own screams of pain, and Flowey's insane laughter. Then, in an instant, his world shattered into darkness.

* * *

The first thing Jeremiah noticed was how he couldn't see anything. The second thing was the extreme agony he was in, it reminded him of the time he got the flu, that really didn't mix well with the blight. The third thing he noticed was actually a consequence of the second. He had wanted to scream out in pain but found himself unable to even open his mouth. Fear and panic coursed through him, he tried to kick, scream, pray for help, anything. But he couldn't do anything. He was forced to lay there and take the pain for what felt like forever.

He was just about to start wondering if he had somehow ended up in hell, (which really would've sucked on account of not even remembering how he died) when he heard something. It was the sound of a door being opened and closed. Then to his surprise, he opened his eyes. He was in a white and grey room. Although he was still in pain, being able to see something drove some of his fear away. He began to greedily look around the room with his eyes, taking it all in.

The room looked quite luxurious, hardwood floors that had no scratches, a bookshelf so full of books he couldn't help but be slightly jealous, and a bed on the opposite side of the room that looked like it should belong to a prince. He wanted to try reading the names of the books, but he found his eyes being forced to look away. His gaze slowly wandered over to a… figure? Jeremiah honestly had no idea how to describe it. It looked like a painting that had been smudged to the point of being nothing but a blur. Normally seeing something like this would be terrifying to Jeremiah, but for whatever reason, he found it's presence comforting. "Is it an angel?" He couldn't help but wonder. If that was the case, maybe he had died and was about to go to heaven. He wanted to smile at the thought, but his body refused to.

He blinked and when he opened his eyes, the blur was kneeling next to him. He realized at this point he was probably lying in a bed. He felt the blur grab his limp hand, this confused Jeremiah for a moment, but he quickly realized the blur was holding his hand. "You're going to be alright." The voice was soft and gentle and sounded like it belonged to an older man, probably around Father Caiaphes's age. Jeremiah wanted to ask the man (it would be rude to just keep calling him the blur at this point ) what was happening, but his body disobeyed his desires yet again. Instead of speaking, he just gave a weak smile and closed his eyes.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, he was back in the hallway. "What… what just happened?" He asked himself, wondering what happened to the pain and the man. "I… I think you just died." His confusion doubled, he had no idea who this girl was and why she was talking to him. Then, the memories hit him.

He staggered back as if he had been punched. "Oh," He muttered, suddenly feeling queasy. He then wordlessly looked himself up and down. After doing this for about a minute, he realized much to his amazement he wasn't injured. Not only that, he was standing back where he first noticed Flowey. His heart skipped a beat and he looked at the patch of grass. Thankfully, he couldn't see Flowey anymore. He let out a sigh and slowly started to slide down the wall. "This is… this is-"

"Impossible." Chara finished for him. Jeremiah nodded. "Yes, that's right. Do you think Flowey just knocked me out?"

Chara scoffed at his idea. "Do you really think that weed wouldn't kill you if he could? Besides, you were pretty injured so someone would've had to heal you. Toriel couldn't have done it because she would've taken you back home, and I think it's safe to say Flowey didn't do it." Jeremiah was quiet as he tried to think of an answer. He spent a lot of time in quiet contemplation of what had happened, what he felt and seen. He also tried to remember his dream (at least he thought it was a dream), but it seemed to fade away faster than he could grasp it. In the end, all he was left with was the vague memory of a kind man who comforted him in a moment of pain.

While Jeremiah was stumped and couldn't think of an answer, Chara came up with one of her own. "Maybe you traveled back in time, like Groundhog Day." Chara sounded slightly excited by her idea. Jeremiah sighed in frustration. "I have no idea what any of that means." He could practically feel Chara tilting her head at him as if he was the oddest thing she ever saw. "You never watched Groundhog Day?" Her voice was slow and brimming with curiosity. Jeremiah just shook his head, silently wondering to himself what she meant by watch. "Well, Groundhog Day is one of the best movies of all time and I'll have to make you watch it once we get back to the surface. So I'm not going to spoil it for you." It took Jeremiah a moment to process what she said, but once he did, he had to do a double-take. "Did she just say movie?" It was at that moment he realized he should probably ask her about when she died. It would've had to have been at least before the Great scouring if she had been able to watch a movie. But before he could, she continued. "Anyways, regardless of what movies you have and haven't seen, what do you think of my theory?"

Jeremiah shook his head slightly, pushing questions about how old she was to a later date, he should focus on one mystery at a time after all. "What do you mean by traveling back in time?" Chara just sighed and spent the next few minutes explaining the basic concept of time travel. By the end of it, Jeremiah felt like he understood the concept less than before he asked the question. "So you're theory is that I got killed and somehow sailed through time?"

Jeremiah jumped slightly when he heard a loud smacking sound coming from nowhere, it took him a moment to realize the sound was Chara slapping her own face. She let out a groan. "Do you have any better ideas?" Funnily enough, after all that talk of the past and future, plus the strange dream, he had a pretty good theory for what happened. "I think I do. But I'll have to explain some things to you." Chara sighed and told him to go ahead. So he spent about a minute or two explaining the vague memory of the dream to her, then spent several more minutes listing multiple instances of prophetic dreams in the Bible.

"So what I'm trying to get at is that I think God gave us a warning to avoid the flower, and encouragement to not give up no matter the circumstances." Jeremiah finished, his voice filled with a slightly manic glee. Who could really blame him, if his theory was true that meant God was planning to use him for something great, maybe to even convert all of these savages. He could be just like one of his personal heroes, Saint Patrick.

He felt Chara shrugging at him. "I like my time travel theory better." Jeremiah snorted as he picked himself up, all of his pain and fear forgotten. "Because sailing through time is such a realistic idea." He started to walk down the hallway and past the grass, making sure to look out for any flowers. Thankfully he found none.

He soon reached what Chara confirmed to be the actual exit to the ruins. It was a beautifully elaborate doorway, it's purple stone columns reminding him of a painting of the old American capital. Between the two columns was a set of purple doors, much like the ones from before. He placed his hands on the door to push it open, the door was freezing cold. Jeremiah shivered. "Hey Chara, what's past the ruins?" Chara was quick to respond. "Snowden." He wondered what Snowden was and why it was called that, but as soon as he pushed the doors open he got his answer.

There was a forest with trees that seemed to reach all the way to the top of the cave. The whole forest was coated in a white powder. Jeremiah stared at it wide-eyed. "Is that…" Chara smiled and answered before he could finish asking. "Snow."

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**(AN) So I got that chapter out quicker than I expected, Thank God. I was originally planning for Flowey to not attack Jeremiah, instead, he would mock him and talk about how he couldn't wait to see if he would kill someone out of paranoia. I wasn't even sure if I wanted have Jeremiah re-load at all, but then I realized I could have a weird dream sequence, and I love myself some weird dream sequences. Also, I made an Omake that was supposed to be what this chapter was originally supposed to be, but I quickly derailed the whole omake.**

* * *

Omake: I totally didn't write this Omake on the fly in one draft.

Flowey grinned at him, but even Jeremiah could tell it was fake. "I heard you talking to that old hag, it was hilarious. I've almost never seen her break down like that, let alone so quickly." Despite Flowey's jovial tone, Jeremiah couldn't help but feel ashamed about how rude he acted. Flowey seemed to sense his shame, which only caused their smile to widen, showing off their sharp teeth (which greatly disturbed Jeremiah, because why would a flower need teeth?). "I was only trying to help her be better." He muttered out, more for himself then for Flowey.

Flowey giggled in response. "Wow, I didn't know you could actually hear me! That must mean you ignored me earlier on purpose!" Jeremiah, realizing that this is just an omake and nothing that happens here matters, decided to be sarcastic. "No, I never meant to ignore you, just like you never meant to kill me." He could feel Chara staring at him bewildered. She quickly came to her senses and asked him in a voice resembling a hiss. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Jeremiah just ignored her.

Flowey just giggled again, because the author already had him widen his smile, and having him do that any more could cause it to fall off his face. "You know what? I was planning to kill you for ignoring me earlier, but you're too amusing just to kill right here and now. I can't wait to see how much the other monsters will scare you if you were convinced the old hag was going to kill you."

Jeremiah frowned at Flowey. "That's not any way to talk about your mother, Asriel." Flowey froze, Chara would've done that as well, but the author has been too lazy to properly explain if she has her own ghost body that Jeremiah can't see, or if she's stuck as just a voice in his head. "What?" The siblings asked in unison. Jeremiah repeated himself. A few seconds passed before both of the siblings started to scream at him. "How dare you compare that weed to my Asriel?" While Chara's shouting was filled with anger, Flowey's was filled with confusion and slight fear. "How in the world did you figure that out?" As soon as she processed Flowey's question, she stopped shouting. Jeremiah gave no visible reaction to either of their shouting, instead, he decided to answer their questions calmly. "I read one of Toriel's books about monster history when you weren't looking Chara." Flowey looked at Jeremiah with desperation and asked. "Wait, Chara's here?"

Jeremiah ignored Flowey's question. "The book talked all about the royal prince and princess and what happened to them. After reading that, it was simple to figure out you became Flowey." The siblings were both quiet for a moment before Flowey almost hesitantly asked. "How in the world was that simple to figure out?"

Jeremiah shrugged. "You were doing some weird and probably heretical things with your sister's soul. Your sister came back as some weird ghost thing. You died in a field of yellow flowers, and guess what? Right after meeting your ghost sister, I met a talking yellow flower. If Chara could come back as a ghost, why couldn't you come back as a talking Flower?" Flowey stared at Jeremiah utterly baffled. Everyone was quiet until Chara eventually hissed out. "Let me get this straight. You didn't mention anything about Asriel coming back from the dead until he insulted our mother?" Jeremiah nodded, not noticing Chara's ever-increasing rage. "And you didn't think I would want to know about that?" It was Jeremiah's turn to feel baffled. "Wait, you didn't know, I thought it was obvious?" There was a moment of calm, that was quickly ruined by Chara starting to yell and curse at Jeremiah.

Jeremiah cringed and looked at Flowey for help. Flowey, while unable to see or hear Chara, could actually feel her rage at Jeremiah. But despite knowing his sister was still around, Flowey was still a soulless jerk, so instead of helping Jeremiah out of this mess, he just giggled and said, "Adios Amigo," and disappeared into the ground with a pop.

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**(AN) I hope you enjoyed that insanity. Please leave any thoughts or criticisms in the reviews. Thanks so much for taking your time to read this story, God bless. **


	5. Ezekiel 37:3

Jeremiah stared at the snowy forest in amazement. "It's quite the sight, isn't it?" Chara asked him. She took his stunned silence as a yes and continued. "I remember getting to see this for the first time with him. He couldn't believe it was my first time getting to see snow and he practically demanded to teach me how to make a snow angel. Sadly, I couldn't do it right no matter how long he spent trying to teach me." Chara's voice wavered for a moment before continuing. "I even messed up a few of his angels… I guess I just mess everything up." As soon as she said this Jeremiah spoke up. "Sorry Chara, what were you saying? I was a bit too caught up in the moment." Chara just sighed and told him it wasn't anything important. Jeremiah took her word for it and began to ask. "So how does it sn-"

"Magic," Chara answered before he could finish. Jeremiah nodded and started to walk down the cold and snowy path. _That_ _makes sense._ He thought to himself before frowning. _It's a shame that something so beautiful is a product of something so vile as witchcraft. I wonder if all the snow and trees will disappear once they stop using magic? Oh well, it doesn't matter. Their immortal souls are far more important than a pretty sight_. Still, despite the magical nature of the… well nature around him, he couldn't help but admire it. What he absolutely didn't admire was just how cold it was. Sure, the clothes Toriel gave him were far warmer than his robes would've been, but it was still freezing cold. "Why don't you just wear your robes on top of what you're wearing right now?" Asked Chara. Jeremiah cringed. "The robes that are currently covered in blood and pie? No thanks. Besides, I left them back in Toriel's home, so I couldn't do that even if I wanted to." Chara let out a huff and was about to make a very clever and snarky comeback when something stopped her. It also stopped Jeremiah right in his tracks. It was the sound of crunching snow.

Jeremiah almost immediately whirled around, hoping that he just imagined it. To his relief, there was nothing there. He let out a sigh and prepared himself to be teased by Chara, but the teasing never came. Instead, she just asked him. "Did you hear that too?" His heart sank and his **determination** wavered. He didn't need to say anything, she could feel his fear, and he could feel her's. They quickly came to an unspoken agreement, which Jeremiah promptly honored by whirling back around and running away. As they ran, they could occasionally hear the sound of crunching snow behind them. Jeremiah felt tempted to try and see what was behind him, but Chara would scream at him to just keep running.

Eventually, he reached a bridge blocked off by several wooden bars. He froze in front of them, unsure of what to do. "Just squeeze past them, you idiot!" It took him a moment to realize that he actually could, but it was too late. "Human. Don't you know how to greet a new pal? Turn around and shake my hand." Jeremiah was frozen with fear until he processed the fact someone was speaking to him. Oh thank God, it's just a person, not some sort of monst..."Monster" finished Chara. Jeremiah nodded, feeling slightly embarrassed. They were both silent for a moment before Chara spoke up again. "Why aren't you running?" Jeremiah frowned and answered. "He said I was his new pal. Besides, aren't you all for trusting strangers?" Chara growled and replied. "Toriel wasn't some random creep who stalked you through the woods. She saved your life, fed and clothed you and even offered you a home."

Jeremiah cringed slightly at the reminder. "Chara, I agree with you that I was probably a bit too quick to condemn Toriel like that. Don't get me wrong, she's still a witch, but I'm starting to think she didn't murder any children. So that's why I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I don't make the same mistake as I did with Toriel." Chara was silent for a moment until she eventually let out a groan. "Fine, just be careful." Jeremiah smiled and muttered out a thank you.

Almost as soon as they finished arguing, the cause of their argument spoke up. "So are you going to turn around and shake my hand? I need to SNOW because its pretty BONECHILLING out here." Jeremiah wondered to himself what needing to snow something meant, and Chara was far too busy groaning to explain the concept of a pun. But he quickly realized he was being rude to his new pal. So he turned around and held out his hand. His new pal was dressed in some strange blue robes that came with a neat little hood that covered his face in shadows. Jeremiah wished his robes had a hood like that, it would help prevent him from getting sunburnt. "It's called a hoodie," Chara explained. Jeremiah smiled, after he tells this new pal about Christ, he'll really have to ask where he could get one like that. His new pal lifted up his own hand to grasp Jeremiah's, as he did so, Jeremiah started to speak. "Hello, there friend. My name is Jeremiah, and I was wondering if you've heard the good news of our glorious Lord and Savior, Jesus…" Jeremiah was interrupted by the sound of someone passing wind. Jeremiah stood there frozen in shock for a moment, until he realized, much to his relief, it hadn't been him. He was about to ask Chara if it had been her, which would've gotten him called an idiot and promptly screamed at, but thankfully his new pal came to the rescue. "Ahh the classic whoopie cushion in the hand trick, it gets them every time." Jeremiah was about to ask his new pal what a whoopie cushion was, but he continued. "My name Sans, Sans the skeleton."

He then pulled down his hood to reveal a smiling skull. Jeremiah's heart skipped a beat and he realized something about himself he never knew before, he was deathly afraid of skeletons. At that moment, he just wanted to run away and never look back. But he stopped himself with a reminder that this "Sans," seemed friendly so far. "He literally stalked you through the woods!" Shouted Chara. Jeremiah was quick to respond. "He was probably just shy." Chara was about to argue further, but she remembered their agreement so she just sighed and said. "Just don't get yourself killed."

Despite his own assurances that the skeleton was friendly, the longer Jeremiah looked at him, the more nervous he became. _Just because he is a walking, talking skeleton, doesn't mean he wants to kill me, steal my soul, and wear my skin like a flesh suit._ Jeremiah thought nervously to himself. Jeremiah put on a fake smile, but it wasn't convincing in the slightest. Jeremiah tried to come up with something to say, but he kept drawing blanks. Thankfully, Sans decided to speak first. "So you're a human, right?" Jeremiah was about to say yes, but Sans continued before he could. "That's hilarious. Anyways, I'm supposed to capture any humans I see." San's grin seemed to somehow widen, and his two empty eye sockets darkened. Jeremiah's heart pounded in his chest and Chara was about to tell him to run away. But almost as soon as it started, the moment ended and Sans returned to normal. "But that's way too much work for a bag of bones like me." Jeremiah deflated with relief, but Chara didn't feel the same way. "What a jerk. Does he actually think it's funny to make a kid scared for his life? He's acting like such a human." Jeremiah ignored the human bit of what Chara said and sighed. "It's ok Chara, he was just being funny." He hoped Chara would just drop it and move on, but she was too filled with **Determination**, to stop. "Did you think it was funny Jeremiah?" He reluctantly admitted he didn't find it funny. "Exactly, he made you think he was going to kill you for no other reason than he thought it was funny. Face it, he's nothing but a bully." He was about to try and defend Sans, but Sans spoke up before he could. "But my brother, Papyrus, he's a human hunting fanatic." Jeremiah felt like he was going to be sick when he heard those words. "Is he a skeleton like you?" He asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "Yep. Oh, speaking of the devil, I think that's him over there." Jeremiah whirled around yet again, giving himself actual whiplash on top of emotional whiplash.

At first, he couldn't see anything besides a great white cloud out in the distance. He first turned his head to the right, then to the left, yet there were no signs of any skeletons. He was about to ask Sans if he had been teasing him when he realized the white cloud was getting closer, fast. He took a step back, wondering how there could be a storm underground. But then he finally noticed it, a figure in the middle of the storm. It was tall, lanky, and running straight towards him. Jeremiah stood there frozen in shock. "Is that..." he began to ask, but Sans answered before he could finish. "Yep, that's my bro right there. Looks like somethings got him worked up if he's kicking up that much snow." Jeremiah tried to work out the logistics on how the skeleton would be able to kick up that much snow, but he couldn't figure out any answers. Jeremiah handled the situation pretty well after that. Instead of panicking and trying to run away on his own, he just stood there, too wrapped up in his own fear to take notice of the world around him. Which was good because he didn't complain when Sans grabbed his hand and led him across the bridge. Chara complained about it, but Jeremiah was too wrapped up in his own fears to notice her, while Sans couldn't hear her.

* * *

"Quick, hide behind that conveniently placed lamp." The word "Hide," was enough to shake him out of his stupor. He then took note of the fact he was no longer standing beside a bridge and was now instead standing besides some sort of wooden structure and an oddly placed lamp. "Who puts a lamp in the middle of a forest?" Chara asked. Jeremiah couldn't bring himself to care about that, he was far too concerned about the fact Papyrus was even closer now.

His eyes darted around him, looking for somewhere to hide. He wouldn't be able to make it to the wooden station in time. "Were you even paying attention to what that creep told you?" Chara asked him, annoyance in her voice. Jeremiah couldn't find any words to answer with, which caused Chara to sigh and say. "Just hide behind that annoyingly placed lamp." Jeremiah quickly did so without question or complaint. His swiftness was rewarded by the fact he hid right before Papyrus showed up. Jeremiah could barely make out Papyrus from behind the lamp, but what he saw terrified him. He was practically a giant, if Jeremiah had to guess, Jeremiah would say he was about eight feet tall. He wore what Jeremiah could only assume to be some sort of armor that was adorned with a short red cape that billowed in the wind. His voice didn't help matters either. It was far too high pitched and he seemed to be yelling out every word he said. That wasn't mentioning his pearly white skull or the fact he had two empty holes where his eyes should've been. As he stared into those two empty holes, Jeremiah started to shake, then to softly cry.

Chara cursed and said. "Damn it, really Jeremiah?" Surprisingly, cursing at him just made him cry even more. Chara let out a groan and tried to push her anger down, she didn't want him to draw that creep's brother's attention. She couldn't quite hear what he was saying, but based on what she could make out, she had to assume this Papyrus was the captain of the royal guard and was someone to be feared. "Jeremiah, can I please talk to you for a moment?" If she still had a body she would've been cringing from how sweet she was making her voice sound. After a moment, he nodded, which Chara was genuinely thankful for. "Jeremiah, I understand that this is all scary for you, that you may feel like giving up. But you can't, you have to survive, you have to stay **Determined**." Jeremiah was silent for a moment before he let out a giggle. Chara was confused by this until he explained. "I could care less about dying. The skeletons just scare me." Chara began to sputter in shock, but before she could recover, they heard the sound of someone laughing and running away.

"It's alright to come out now," Sans called out. Jeremiah hesitated for a moment, before stepping out from behind the lamp "You oughta…" San's eyes seemed to somehow widen when he took note of Jeremiah's appearance. He was silent for a moment before saying. "Wow, I didn't realize my puns would bore you to TEARS." Jeremiah blinked in confusion. Chara took notice of his confusion and explained. "He can tell that you've been crying." Jeremiah blushed and told Sans. "It wasn't your jokes, It's just... your brother… he scares me." Somehow, his eye sockets seemed to widen even more, but he quickly composed himself and shrugged. "Well… that's weird." His empty eye sockets seemed to stare right into his eyes for a moment, causing Jeremiah to shiver. But almost as soon as it began, it ended. "Welp, see you up ahead. Don't get killed." San's then turned around and walked back across the bridge and towards the ruins. "Where do you think he's going Chara?" Jeremiah could feel her shrugging. "I don't know and I don't care. Did you see the way he stared at you right now?" Jeremiah nodded but frowned. "I thought we agreed to not argue about this anymore."

He could feel Chara shrugging at him. "We never agreed to that. I said you could give him the benefit of the doubt, but couldn't act stupid. By the way, you've done both fairly well so far." Jeremiah was caught off by guard by her sudden compliment and blushed. "Thanks." He muttered. He then perked up. "Oh, were you able to overhear any of their conversation?" Chara was silent for far longer then Jeremiah would've liked, but she eventually answered. "Yes. Based off what I heard, I think he's the captain of the royal guard." Jeremiah cringed and asked. "Is that bad?" Chara's answer was short and sweet. "Yep."

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**(AN) So merry late Christmas guys. I know this chapter is pretty short, but I was trying to release it on Christmas Day. Despite my best attempts, I thought I wasn't going to be able to realize it until after the new year. But one of my gifts, (an electronic typewriter that's connected to Bluetooth) helped me get most of this finished yesterday. I just had to do spellchecks and all that this morning. Honestly, I like the typewriter a lot, it's way better than writing on my phone, and I got a Bluetooth speaker so I can actually listen to stuff while I write, which helps me write a whole lot more. I'm sorry if I haven't updated in a while, I had another project I wanted to put a little work into and this Holliday season was real busy.**

**So about the stuff that happens this chapter. Being honest, I had no idea what to do with Sans and Papyrus because I think they're slightly overrated, so they're focused on a whole lot more. And one of my main goals in this story is to do stuff that hasn't done by that many fanfics. So after much brainstorming, I came up with the idea of having Jeremiah being afraid of Papyrus. I'm fairly certain this hasn't been done a whole lot before, at least I hope so. Just to make things clear, Papyrus isn't the captain of the Royal guard, Chara just misheard him. But there's plenty of more misunderstandings about Papyrus in upcoming chapters.**

**You guys probably know the drill by now. Please leave a review and all reviews are honestly appreciated. Even if you just want to tell me how much you hate my story, please do and tell me why. Tell me if you notice any grammar mistakes, (I just realized the other day, thoughts are supposed to be written in italics instead of quotes) because I know it will improve how I write.**

**I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas yesterday with you're friends and family. God bless and I hope you enjoy this chapter.**


	6. Lamentations 5:3

Snowflakes slowly floated down onto the ground all around Jeremiah. The trees surrounding him towered so high above him, he couldn't see their tops. _I wonder if they stretch all the way to the top of the cave? _He thought to himself. "I used to wonder that too. A friend and I tried to climb up one and find out, we managed to get up around ten feet before they chickened out." Jeremiah almost let the anecdote past him by without a second thought, but he caught onto something odd she mentioned. "You mentioned you had a friend, was it Toriel by chance?" Chara seemed surprised by the sudden question, but she recovered quickly and laughed. "No, it wasn't Toriel. What made you think that?"

"Well it's just that you seemed to know so much about Toriel, but it was more of a guess than anything else." She was quiet for a moment, then responded. "It wasn't that bad of a guess, she was my friend's mom." Jeremiah's felt some surprise at first, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Toriel acted just like he always imagined a mother would, so it made a whole lot of sense she was a mother. Although the realization did make him feel guilty, her child almost definitely had left home a long time ago, or possibly even died. But going off the fact Toriel was still alive after what he could only guess to be hundreds of years, her child was more than likely still alive. But still, that meant not only had he been rude to a friendly woman who saved his life, (who was admittedly still a witch) but to an old lonely woman who had saved his life. Desperate to stop thinking about how he treated Toriel, he asked Chara a question. "Any idea where your friend is today? You wouldn't be able to talk to them, but I imagine you'll like to see-"

"He's dead." Chara interrupted abruptly, any cheer in her voice gone. Jeremiah was surprised by such a hostile reaction, so it took him a moment to try and respond. "I know it's been a long time, but based on the fact Toriel is-" Chara interrupted him again. "I watched him die, so I'm fairly certain he's dead." After that, silence overtook them both. Jeremiah desperately wanted to apologize but something told him it would only make matters worse.

* * *

Walking from that point onward seemed incredibly lonely. The winding paths he walked down seemed to be completely devoid of life. So when he saw two wooden structures much like the one by that conveniently placed lamp, he had some hope he would find someone. But alas, all he found was a sign that said something about dog marriage, (whatever that meant) and a note that read. "All royal guard units of Snowden are being temporarily being recalled to Hotland for training. Contact Papyrus if you have any human sightings to report." At the bottom of the paper, it said it was written by a person named Undyne. _Whoever this Undyne person is, they can't write that good_ _because this is all written in almost lazily large letters. _Jeremiah thought to himself as he walked away from the two stations.

_Regardless, thank God for his providence. I'm not sure if I can deal with two skeletons, let alone an entire army._ "I wouldn't call the royal guard an army, they're more like a police force." Jeremiah was surprised by Chara suddenly speaking again, but he wouldn't complain. But he could complain about her next question. "I haven't gotten a chance to ask you Jeremiah, but what year is it?" Jeremiah's heart froze. _Should I tell her? _"Tell her what?" Chara asked, not sounding very happy at the idea that he was trying to hold something back from her. It took Jeremiah a moment to realize she could read his thoughts. He wanted to smack himself for forgetting something like that. Feeling her ever-increasing impatience, plus his ever-increasing panic, he just blurted out the answer. "It's the year two thousand six hundred and sixteen." He braced himself for some sort of emotional breakdown about how all of her friends and family were dead, but it never came. She just laughed. "That's a good one Jeremiah." When Jeremiah didn't laugh back, Chara's laughter died down. "You're kidding, right?" Jeremiah shook his head, causing Chara to become silent. Jeremiah was just starting to wonder if he had been right to worry, when Chara spoke back up. "So are flying cars a thing yet?" Jeremiah was completely and utterly baffled, to say the least. "How about robots?" His confusion only doubled, causing her to sigh. "I guess movies lied to me. Unless the future is some post-nuclear war wasteland." She could feel how his panic skyrocketed when she mentioned the wasteland bit. "Wait, was there a nuclear war?"

Jeremiah was surprised by the lack of panic in her voice, she just sounded surprised. He hesitated for a moment, before deciding she deserved to know. "Yes." He cringed as he spoke, expecting a million different reactions. What he wasn't expecting was the feeling of her shrugging at him and asking. "When?" He felt a large weight come off his shoulders with her calm reaction. "The year two thousand and twenty-seven." He could feel her nod at him as if he was telling her some trivial thing. As relieved as he felt about her reaction, it still bothered him. "I'm not trying to tell you how to feel, but shouldn't this bother you more?" He could feel Chara raising an eyebrow at him. "Why should it? I died all the way back in nineteen ninety-nine, and I didn't have any family on the surface." That last bit caught Jeremiah's attention. "You're an orphan too?" He asked, slightly more excited than he probably should've been at the prospect. He could feel her shrug. "Yep. Mother died giving birth to me and father didn't want me, so off to the orphanage I went. So why were you sent to the orphanage?"

"Well I wasn't sent to an orphanage, I was left outside a monastery." He could feel that Chara reached some sort of sudden understanding. "So that's why you're so religious!" Jeremiah wasn't sure if she meant it as an insult, a compliment, or simply a statement, but he decided to take it as a compliment. "Yes, I have the monks at the monastery to thank for my understanding of scripture. But as for why I was left there, I was born with the Blight, so my parents left me on a hill not too far away from the monastery." If Chara still had her body, her eyes would look like saucers. "Wait, what's the Blight and why would they just abandon you over it?" Her voice was confused but had plenty of anger mixed up in it. Jeremiah sighed. "Well, the Blight is a type of birth defect that first appeared after the bombs fell. It's commonly believed to be contagious, but such claims are merely superstitious, it's actually just a mutation caused by radiation. A little known fact to the average uneducated person is that not all forms of Blight are the same. It's more of an umbrella term, like the common cold or a fever, so there are plenty of different types of it that vary in severity. But that isn't to say they don't have symptoms that are almost universal. These symptoms include Osteoporosis, Hemoptysis, Desquamation, Xeroderma, and Albinism." He paused when Chara let out a groan. "I don't want an encyclopedia definition of whatever you have, I just want to know why they would abandon you because of it."

Jeremiah found her reaction slightly disappointing, if he added up all the time he spent studying the Blight, it probably would've added up to be almost a year, so he had been looking forward to finally getting to put that knowledge to good use. "Well then, I'll get to the point in a moment, but it is quite the lengthy explanation." Chara could tell there was no point in arguing, so she just sighed and told him to get on with it. "Well, to make it as short and simple as possible, the Blight can be a very deadly condition. Most people who are born with it die before reaching three years old. While that's mostly thanks to how it weakens the immune system and some of the more deadly variants, it's also in large part thanks to their parents murdering their children as soon as it becomes obvious they have the Blight. The reasons as to why they do this really depends on the parents, but there are three main reasons as to why this happens. The first of these reasons being superstition. Many tribes hold the belief that the Blight is actually contagious, so they usually kill their children before it can spread. Of course, such beliefs are utterly preposterous, but I won't bore you as to why." Chara interrupted by saying. "Thank God," But Jeremiah ignored her and pressed on.

"The second reason is entirely practical. People who have the blight aren't the best at manual labor, and most parents can't afford to feed an extra mouth that can't even work. Finally, the third reason being a strange sense of pity. You see, life with the Blight can be very miserable and some people would consider a quick and painless death preferable over a life with the blight." He finished his explanation with a sigh. Chara was silent and contemplated all that he said.

* * *

Although they were mostly silent from that point on, they both felt a whole lot better. They found a few puzzles that had blocked their way, Jeremiah was able to do most of them on his own, but Chara helped him out with a few of them. They were just walking past a strange glass floor and some sort of machine when Chara interrupted their semi-silence. "It's kinda weird that we haven't seen anyone since we saw those skeletons." Jeremiah was surprised both by the fact she was speaking and by what she pointed out. "Being honest, I didn't notice it until you mentioned it. I guess everyone here is at that royal guard training thing we read about."

"That would explain why there isn't any royal guard, but Snowden is supposed to be a big enough town, so we should've seen someone by now." Jeremiah thought about what she said, and felt tempted to ask the obvious question but knew it was probably insensitive. Thankfully, Chara realized the question as well and didn't care about it nearly as much as Jeremiah thought she did. "Then again, it's been six hundred years, so who knows if Snowden is still even there." She sounded as if she was in deep concentration. "Do you think that Papyrus chased everyone out of town?" If he could actually look at Chara, he would be staring at her bewildered. "Why in the world would he do that? Isn't he supposed to be captain of the royal guard?" He could sense Chara's slight disappointment. "I don't know, maybe he didn't want to risk a human killing anyone. You're probably right, it was just a guess." He was about to tell her it wasn't that bad of a guess when a loud shrieking voice shouted from right behind him.

"Hello, there little and easily scared monster that kinda looks like a human Sans told me about!" Jeremiah jumped up in surprise and almost cursed, but he stopped himself. Chara didn't bother stopping herself however. The voice was coming from right behind him, and he had a sinking feeling that he knew who it was. He really didn't want to turn around, but he forced himself to slowly turn around. To his horror, it was Papyrus, and he was holding a steaming plate of blood… very thick blood that was covering a bunch of noodles. "Pretty sure that's just spaghetti." Chara could sense his confusion. "Its Italian food." Jeremiah tilted his head. "Like the Romans?"

"Yep, like the Romans. It's actually pretty good. But why is the captain of the royal guard standing in the middle of the woods with a plate of spaghetti?" Jeremiah wanted to know that too, but he realized what Papyrus had actually said. "Wait does he actually think I'm a monster, and why would Sans lie to his brother?" Chara was quick to give her best guess. "Well, monsters don't get to see humans that often, so I guess it's believable he wouldn't recognize one. And as for why that creep would lie… I have no idea, maybe Papyrus is lying?"

"Now you may be wondering to yourself, 'Why is the great Papyrus speaking to me, a poor and easily scared monster?' Well, it's simple. I've heard about how you're so easily scared, that even my lazy brother Sans frightens you. I want you to realize that you can trust your fellow monsters." He paused to bend down and put the plate of spaghetti on the snow. "So I made you a plate of my famous pasta for you to eat. Once you eat it, you'll realize you can trust me and we'll be best friends. So I'll leave you here to enjoy my pasta and meet you in town." He then turned around and started to run into the trees, his shrieking laughter echoing through the woods. Jeremiah stared at the retreating skeleton, completely baffled. "Chara? Did I just make the same mistake I did with Toriel?" She hesitated for a moment before muttering. "I honestly don't know… maybe?"

They both stood there in confused silence until his stomach growled and drew him out of his stupor. He stared at the spaghetti and slowly started to step towards it. As soon as she realized what he was doing, Chara let out a growl. "Don't you dare eat that food. He could've poisoned it." Jeremiah pouted and pointed out. "If he wanted to kill me, wouldn't he have done it already?" As he pointed that out, he realized something else. "Wait, isn't this almost literally the same argument we had about Toriel?" He could feel Chara rolling her eyes at him, "Well this is different, I knew Toriel, but Papyrus is a complete stranger to us. For all we know Flowey could be working for him." Jeremiah cringed at the mention of Flowey's name. He knew Chara was probably right, heck almost every part of him screamed at him to just agree with her, but a small part of him that thought about how Toriel broke down and how nice Papyrus acted demanded he gives him a chance. Besides, how would he convert anyone if he acted terrified of everyone he met? His stomach growled again, causing him to blush. his hunger didn't hurt either.

So he made his way to the spaghetti despite her protests. He lifted up the plate and took note of its sour smell. "Pretty sure spaghetti isn't supposed to smell like that." Chara sounded legitimately sick as she spoke. While Jeremiah had no idea how it was supposed to smell, he had to admit it made him feel slightly sick too. "I don't even think he gave you a fork," She added. Jeremiah didn't particularly care about that though, so he just picked up a fist full of noodles and took note of how they felt like rubber. He opened his mouth and stuffed the spaghetti into his mouth. At first, it actually tasted surprisingly good as it slowly slid down his throat. He didn't notice the taste until after he ate the third fistful.

* * *

He was vomiting in the snow soon enough. "You idiot, I told you not to eat it, but does anyone ever listen to me? No! Nobody ever listens to me and they always end up getting themselves killed!" Chara kept ranting like this for quite a while, but Jeremiah was too busy vomiting and coughing up blood to pay attention. Eventually, there was nothing left in his stomach to eject and his coughing died down. And to both of their surprise, he wasn't dead yet.

They were both quiet for a moment until Jeremiah spoke up. "I guess you were right, I'm sorry." Chara hesitated for a moment and resisted the urge to rub it in his face. She gathered her nerves and just calmly said. "Just be more careful in the future, ok?" Jeremiah nodded and picked himself off the ground. Once he was back on his feet, he looked down at his mess and laughed. "Thank God I managed to get rid of it all before the poison took effect." Chara was silent for a moment before adding. "We really gotta watch out for that Papyrus, he's obviously cruel, cunning, and far worse than his creep of a brother." Jeremiah, while still slightly traumatized by his recent near-death experience, still wanted to give people the benefit of the doubt. "Well, it must've been hard for him to grow up with someone… as lost as Papyrus." Chara just made a noncommittal grunt and he continued down the path.

* * *

**(AN) So this chapter was originally planned to be a part of the last chapter, but I wasn't sure if I could get it all done before new year. But thanks to God, a couple days off from work and my new typewriter, I was able to get this half done in time as well. I originally wanted there to be a whole lot more exposition, but I figured that would be boring. I also had a slightly different backstory in mind for Chara and planned to focus on that a whole lot more in this chapter, but that plus the blight exposition kinda made the chapter have too much exposition. Here's a little detail that's still canon to this story but will probably never be mentioned is Chara's parent's names, which are Cor, (her father) and Caroli, (her mother). Their last name would be Venatici. The reason behind these names was pretty cool, there's actually a star named Chara. Chara, (the star) is in the Canes Venatici constellation. Cor Caroli is the brightest star in the constellation.  
**

**Also, some of you may be wondering why there are no monsters this chapter besides Papyrus. The reason is simple,** **T̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶a̶z̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶t̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶c̶u̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶o̶r̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶s̶t̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶p̶u̶z̶z̶l̶e̶s̶, but the reason is a spoiler and will be revealed in an upcoming chapter.**

**You guys know the drill, please leave a review and I hope you enjoy the story. Have a good day, happy early new year and God bless!**

**(Edit) Thank you so much Scion for your review! One of my main goals in this story is too make it as unique as possible. Also seeing your review led me to re-reading this chapter to make sure everyone was in character, which led to me noticing a few spelling and consistency errors. I then went a head and corrected all the errors I could find. You really don't understand how happy seeing your review made me. I hope you have a wonderful New Year and God bless.**


	7. 2 Kings 14:19

Jeremiah couldn't help but shiver when he saw what lay ahead. "Chara, are there any other ways to Snowdin?" He asked, his voice laden with desperation. "Nope, the only way in and out is across this bridge." The bridge in question was just a bunch of wooden planks suspended in the air by some rope. While the fact the bridge was such a poorly built one greatly discomforted Jeremiah, the fact it was the only way across the widest and deepest gorge he had ever seen just made it even worse. "How many gorges have you even seen Jeremiah?" Chara asked skeptically. "Also is that even a gorge? Wouldn't this be a canyon?" Jeremiah ignored her questions about the name of this giant gaping hole in the ground and focused on her first question. "I got to see plenty of gorges with the caravan I was with right before I fell. But they were never stupid enough to try and cross them." He could feel Chara rolling her eyes at him. "Did any of those canyons have a bridge?" They continued debating about gorges for the next half hour. They ultimately agreed that while it was a good thing that they even built a bridge, they definitely could've done a way better job. They also agreed to disagree on the name of the giant gaping hole in the ground.

Unfortunately for Jeremiah, that meant he had no more excuses to delay crossing the bridge. So with a prayer for safety, he took a single step onto the bridge. The whole thing wobbled and shook as he stepped onto it, causing him to cringe. He took a moment to gather his nerves, and once he did he placed his second foot on the bridge. It shook once again, causing him to panic and grasp the ropes suspending the bridge like his life depended on it. After that, he slowly but steadily made his way across the bridge, praying to God all the while. And the further he got, the more confident he felt. Soon enough there were only three planks left between him and sweet solid ground. "Thank you, Lord, for getting me across this bridge safely. Please help me as we move on and give me the right words to save these savages. Amen." Chara who had been respectfully quiet while he prayed, chose now to speak up. "I don't know why you were so scared of this bridge Jeremiah. Whoever built it did an amazing job because it's been here since before I fell, yet it's still here." It took Jeremiah a moment to realize what she had said, and it took him another moment to do the math on how old this bridge was. But as soon as he finished doing the math in his head, he let out a squeak and ran the final three steps and flung himself onto the snow.

He panted for a few seconds before looking back at the bridge, fully expecting it to collapse right at that moment. But it never did. It took a moment for the adrenaline to go away, and as soon as it did his fear was replaced with anger. "Why didn't you tell me that before I got on that deathtrap!" Chara laughed and replied. "You didn't die, did you?" Chara didn't wait for him to answer. "Besides, would you have crossed the bridge if you knew that?" Jeremiah tried to come up with an answer, but he couldn't come up with one that wouldn't have him either lying or agreeing. So he just let out a huff, picked himself off the ground and marched off. "Wrong way," Chara said smugly. He turned around without a word and marched off once again.

Soon enough he was in front of a sign that said, "Welcome to Snowdin!" He could see a small town just past the sign. Jeremiah was a bundle of nerves as he approached Snowdin. "What's wrong, Jeremiah, it's just a town full of monsters that apparently want to steal your soul?" While Chara meant that as a joke, it just made him more nervous. His eyes darted all around him, half expecting to see Papyrus charging at him. But he never saw any signs of him, even after he entered the town.

The town was... nice, Jeremiah supposed. The little wooden buildings they had were nothing like he ever saw before. He could see they all had lights on inside their homes and stores, but he saw no sign of any actual monsters. He didn't even need to take a guess as to why it was obvious they were hiding from Papyrus. "I can't believe Asgore would let this cretin get away with harassing an entire town like this!" Jeremiah raised an eyebrow. "Didn't Toriel say Asgore murdered multiple children?" Chara hesitated for a moment before saying. "I'm sure it's all some sort of misunderstanding." For whatever reason Chara seemed hurt and desperate as she said that. Those emotions were the main reason Jeremiah didn't tell her how stupid that was, he really didn't want to deal with a sad and quiet Chara again. The secondary reason being the voice calling out from behind him. "Yo!" Jeremiah whirled around to face the voice. To his relief it wasn't another skeleton, it was just a... weird lizard child? They were smiling at him, showing off their razor-sharp teeth. It would've normally made him nervous to see teeth like that, but the fact they were a whole lot shorter than him, plus the fact they were obviously a poor cripple missing both of their arms, made him pity them far more than their teeth could possibly make him fear them.

Jeremiah gave the crippled lizard child a genuine smile, even though Chara was cursing inside his head about Papyrus crippling children. "Howdy, my name is Jeremiah. What's your name?" The crippled kid seemed to look him up and down before responding. "My name is Monster Kid." Jeremiah stared at Monster kid and wondered what sort of parent would name their child that, seriously you'd be as well to just combine both of their parents' names. "Creativity when it comes to names isn't something the monsters are that good at." Chara supplied quite helpfully. "So dude, your a kid too right?" Jeremiah was confused by the question, was Monster Kid asking if he was a child or asking if he had the same last name. Monster kid continued before he could even begin to think up an answer. "You don't need to answer, I can tell you're a kid based on the fact you're wearing a striped shirt." Jeremiah was confused by this as well until he remembered what he was wearing. "I guess I am wearing one." They both became silent for a moment until Monster Kid spoke up. "Yo, you wanna go see Undyne?" Jeremiah didn't know who this Undyne person was, but she sounded vaguely familiar. "Who's Undyne?" He asked Monster Kid. Monster Kid's eyes became like saucers. "You've never heard about Undyne before? Do you live under a rock or something?" Jeremiah felt tempted to point out that technically Monster Kid lived under a rock, but he figured that would be insensitive. So instead of being snarky, he just shook his head. Monster kid seemed to be disappointed at first, but that quickly turned into joy. "Well, that just means I'll have to tell you all about her! She's the coolest, she beats up all the evil humans in the name of justice! She could beat up all the teachers in the underground... not that she would, she's far too cool to hurt innocents like that!" He continued to ramble on excitedly about this undyne for quite a while, but Jeremiah felt like he got the basic gist of Undyne, so he began to ignore Monster Kid in favor of thinking about what Undyne meant for him. _He had me worried when he mentioned her beating up all the evil humans. But he said she wouldn't hurt an innocent, so I should be all right_. For once, Chara seemed to agree with his assessment. "Maybe we could get her to deal with Papyrus?" Chara suggested. Jeremiah gave it some thought before shaking his head. "We can't possibly ask her to risk her life like that." Chara hesitated for a moment before conceding that he was right. He started to pay attention to Monster Kid at exactly the right moment. "She's even the captain of the Royal Guard!" That single sentence was enough to send Jeremiah on a pretty big loop. But once he recovered he interrupted Monster Kid's ramblings to ask. "Isn't Papyrus supposed to be captain of the Royal Guard?" That single sentence seemed to stop Monster Kid's ramblings in their track. Monster Kid looked at Jeremiah like he had two heads. "Yo... that's pretty dumb, what made you think that?"

Jeremiah was thrown aback by Monster Kid's reply. "Chara, are you sure Papyrus is the captain of the royal guard?" Chara shook herself out of her confusion to answer him. "Well, of course, he's the Captain of the royal guard, he tried to poison you remember?"

"Of course I remembered near getting killed by Italian food, but Flowey tried to murder me as well, and he isn't the Captain of the royal guard, is he?" Chara thought about what he said for a moment before it all seemed to click for her. "I got it! Papyrus is using this Undyne chick as a puppet! Heck, maybe he's even using Da… I mean Asgore as a puppet too!" Despite Chara's apparent glee at unraveling the mystery, Jeremiah had his doubts. Her theory seemed to be a little... out there. But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Papyrus had pretended to be his friend before he struck, so he knew Papyrus preferred a cloak and dagger approach. Based on Monster Kid's description of her, Undyne sounded far too just to be killing children on her own violation. Chara also seemed to think Asgore was unable to murder children, so he would trust her judgment on that. "See, it makes sense," Chara said smugly. Jeremiah just sighed and conceded that it did in fact make some sense.

He then realized he had been standing silently in front of Monster kid for at least for a few minutes now. Jeremiah blushed and finally answered. "Well, Papyrus tried to poison me." Monster kid's eyes widened like saucers. "Wait, what!" Jeremiah looked all around, to make sure no one was listening. Once the coast was clear, he leaned in towards Monster Kid and whispered. "He tried to poison me with spaghetti. Also, I'm pretty sure he's using Undyne and Asgore as puppets." Monster kid stared at Jeremiah slack-jawed, which he could understand, having your whole worldview flipped upside down like that could mess with a person. But almost as soon as it came, their shock disappeared and was replaced by a sudden understanding. "Oh, your that paranoid dude Sans warned everyone about" It was Jeremiah's turn to be shocked. "Paranoid?" He asked. Monster Kid looked like he made a mistake and realized it. "Uh... I probably shouldn't have said that." They stared awkwardly at each other for a second before monster kid spoke up. "I guess I'll see you later." He then turned around and started to run away. It wasn't until that moment Jeremiah realized what he forgot to do. "Wait have you gotten to hear the good news of our Lord and savior-" Monster Kid tripped before Jeremiah could finish. Jeremiah was about to rush over and help him back up, but Monster Kid was able to jump back onto his feet with so little difficulty Jeremiah couldn't help but be impressed. He then continued to run away, leaving a very confused, worried and slightly offended Jeremiah behind.

Chara let out a huff and said. "What a nerve he has!" Jeremiah sighed and said. "I don't know Chara, what he said has got me thinking, maybe I am slightly paranoid." He could feel Chara shaking her head. "No I'm not talking about the kid, I'm talking about that perfidious skeleton Papyrus, he's obviously had his creep of a brother tell everyone to avoid you!" Jeremiah blinked and asked. "Wait, wouldn't that be helping us?" Chara let out a groan. "It does help us, but he doesn't care about that. It's all so he could hunt and kill you himself, the fiend!" Jeremiah thought about it for a moment, before realizing that once again, he couldn't come up with a better explanation, so he just accepted hers, for now.

With no sure idea of what to do next, he just aimlessly wandered to the other end of the town. He passed by a large two-story cabin with two mailboxes. One was filled to the brim with mail and was labeled San's, while the other one was empty and labeled Papyrus. "See, everyone's too scared to even send him mail!" Jeremiah didn't bother to reply, he was too busy just keeping his head down and hoping neither of them could see him from their home.

* * *

Snow was whirling all around him, blinding him and making him shake like a leaf. "Chara, do you have any idea if I'm going the right way?" He could feel Chara giving him a thumbs up. "Your almost to waterfall." Jeremiah smiled at the news and offered a quick prayer to God. But as he did so, he realized something pretty important. "Hey, Chara. Why am I going towards this Waterfall place? Shouldn't I just stay in Snowdin if I want to convert people? I understand not wanting to be killed by Papyrus, but can't he just follow us to this Waterfall place?" Chara was about to tell him about her plan involving the king when she noticed someone up ahead. "Jeremiah watch out, Papyrus is right in front of you!" Jeremiah froze in his tracks and looked straight ahead. At first, he couldn't see anything, but then he saw him. A tall and lanky silhouette standing firm and facing straight towards him. Even though Jeremiah couldn't see the skeleton, he could feel his empty eye sockets staring into his soul. "So my easily scared friend, how'd you enjoy my famous pasta?" Jeremiah blinked in disbelief at the audacity of the skeleton. _Did he just make a joke about poisoning me?_ "I think that cretin just did!" But once he got over the audacity of Papyrus, he realized he had a big problem. "Chara how am I supposed to get around him?" Chara let out a curse that didn't inspire any confidence in Jeremiah. "You'll have to find a way to get passed him." Jeremiah gulped and took a step forward. "Oh, you loved my spaghetti so much you want to hug the great Papyrus! I accept!" He then stretched out both his arms and started to approach Jeremiah.

Jeremiah wavered for a moment and took a step back. "There's no need to be nervous new friend, the great Papyrus won't hurt you!" Something within Jeremiah snapped at that moment. "Stop pretending! We both know that I'm a human, and you're the captain of the royal guard and are trying to kill me!" This seemed to stun Papyrus and even Chara. Jeremiah took a small amount of pleasure in their reactions. But his pleasure quickly turned into fear when Papyrus spoke up. "Well, if that's the game you want to play…" Papyrus summoned a giant bone and held it in his hands like a club. "Then I, the great Papyrus, captain of the royal guard, shall capture you human!" Jeremiah stood there as if he was held in place by some sort of spell, which in all honesty was a possibility. But whatever spell had held him down, whether it was real or just imagined, was broken by Chara yelling at him to duck. He did as she told him to, and was rewarded by Papyrus just barely missing his head. Thankfully Papyrus had put a little bit too much of his strength in his attack, so when it hit nothing but air, it caused him to fall. "Now's your chance, run!" Jeremiah didn't need to be told twice.

He ran as fast as he could, Papyrus never far behind him. Running through the snowstorm was miserable, the snow almost reached all the way up to his knees, which made every step more difficult than the last. And he couldn't even see where he was going thanks to the storm. It got to the point that he just wanted to give up and die, but a strange sense of **DETERMINATION **pushed him ever onwards. His persistence was eventually rewarded by the snow gradually becoming thinner, allowing him to actually see where he was going. Just a few feet ahead of him the snow stopped, the ground being coated in a strange purple grass instead of that accursed white powder. There was also a small pond off the side of the trail. He felt a bony hand graze against his back. "I've almost got you that time human!" Jeremiah felt like crying, Papyrus would catch him any moment now. "Jeremiah I have an idea! Dive into the water quickly, he can't follow you because his armor would just cause him to sink!"

To be fair, Jeremiah was in such a panicked state, he didn't have time to think what she said through. All he heard was a way to escape certain torture and death at the hands of the perfidious, skeletal, puppeteer of the underground known as Papyrus. So just barely avoiding yet another attempt by Papyrus to grab him, he made a sharp turn to the left and dove headfirst into the water. While Chara's plan was fairly good on paper, there was a critical flaw in it Jeremiah didn't realize until he hit the water. That single flaw was the fact he didn't know how to swim.

* * *

Papyrus starred as the strange monster kept screaming and thrashing at the surface of the water. He was asking for someone named Abba to help him. "Wow, this guy's really dedicated to playing monsters and humans," Papyrus muttered to himself. At first, their screams for help had really concerned him and he was fully prepared to dive in and rescue them. But he remembered the sneaky way he had been asked to play this game to begin with, so he figured this was all a part of one of those nerdy roleplaying things Undyne mentioned before. It was pretty nice of them to let him be the captain of the royal guard, it was important to get practice for his future job after all. He also had to give this to them, their actions could rival Mettaton's. "Sup Bro?" Papyrus whirled around to face his brother. "Well Sans, I successfully befriended that poor scared monster you told me about." Sans seemed to be surprised by this for a moment, but his surprise quickly morphed into his usual air of aloof amusement. "So where are they now?"

Papyrus turned around to point at them, but they weren't there anymore, in their place was just some bubbling water. "I don't know," Papyrus admitted. He couldn't help but feel vaguely hurt by his new friend just up and leaving him like this, but he reasoned to himself that the thought of San's puns must've scared them off. Sans just shrugged in response. "Well then, if you don't know where they are, I'll be going back to work." He then turned around and started to walk deeper into waterfall. Papyrus felt tempted to tell him he was going the wrong way, but he figured Sans was just going to take another one of his shortcuts. Papyrus let out a sigh and looked at the water as the bubbling slowly stopped.

* * *

**(AN) So it's a new year and a new chapter! I hope y'all have enjoyed your winter breaks, I sure have. Being honest, I actually really like the way this chapter turned out, but if you don't like it, please let me know why, so I can fix it in the future. And that leads me to begging y'all into leaving a review because I love seeing reviews. Thanks to the two people who have reviewed, you both have made me very happy. **

**Thanks for reading this chapter, I hope y'all have enjoyed it. Have a great day and year, God bless!**

**Edit: Just realized I forgot to put in the actual line breaks and just left the words, line break. Fixed it as soon as I noticed it. Its a small thing, but I do apologize for that.**


	8. 2 Kings 1:15

Jeremiah kicked and thrashed in the water, desperately trying to keep his head above the water. Chara was yelling at him to calm down, but he couldn't hear her past his own screams for God to help him. Every few seconds, his head would dip under the ice-cold water and some of the water would rush past his screaming lips. Every time he kicked himself back up to the surface, he could see Papyrus standing at the shoreline, doing nothing but staring at him and smiling.

He struggled like this for a few minutes, but he eventually became exhausted and his movements became slower. So he started to sink under the water despite his pathetic attempts to kick himself back up to the surface.

He was slowly being engulfed by darkness as his lungs started to burn. Chara was yelling something about her plans getting someone else killed and attempting to apologize to him. But he wasn't paying attention, he was too focused on two things, the fact that drowning was literally the last way he expected to die, (ok, being killed by a talking flower was the last way, but that was obviously just a vision) and the fact he was about to leave this mortal coil. _It'll be nice to meet Chara face to face, she should be in heaven, right?_ It was at that moment he realized he had never even asked Chara if she was saved, which made him feel like an absolute failure. If he wasn't drowning, he would be laughing. _I couldn't even save the girl forced to listen to everything I say._ He closed his eyes, trying to prepare himself for what was to come next. He wasn't prepared for the water surrounding him to seemingly vanish in an instant.

* * *

Jeremiah immediately began coughing our water. "Oh thank God you're alright!" Jeremiah just dimly registered Chara's words, but he understood what she said enough to be thankful for her concern and to decide that if she was thanking God, she obviously had to be saved. But that didn't explain how he was alright, he certainly wasn't in heaven, that much was for sure. _Well, there's only one way to find out how_. He thought to himself. He opened his eyes and was surprised to see he was on a boat. Not only that, someone else was in the boat with him. Well… at least he thought it was a someone. "They're the river person." Chara supplied.

Jeremiah stared at the billowing purple cloak that seemed to have no one inside it. The darkness where there should've been a face seemed to stare back at him. "Tra la la, don't be afraid. I found you in the water, are you a fish?" Jeremiah was thrown off by the sudden and odd question. Not only was the question odd, but their voice was odd as well. Their voice was light and airy, almost sounding like it was singing every word they said. He couldn't even tell if the voice belonged to a man or a woman, let alone if they sounded like a child or someone ancient. But once he got over his initial surprise, he gave them his answer which was a simple no. The river person seemed amused by his answer. "Then why were you in the water, wasn't it made for fish, and land for things that aren't fish?"

Jeremiah blinked in confusion at the river person's second question. Chara just let out a groan. "Just ignore them, the river person says and does weird stuff like this all the time." Before Jeremiah could come up with a reply to either of them, the river person laughed and said. "Don't call things you don't understand weird, fallen child." Chara's reaction was swift. "Wait, can you hear me?" Her voice was a mixture of excitement and confusion. Something about the River Person's posture gave him the idea that they were just going to ignore Chara's question. But before his guess could be put to the test, the boat suddenly jerked to a stop.

Jeremiah looked up and saw that they were in a small room, he could see Sans sitting behind one of those wooden structures, Monster Kid, and some weird red monster standing in the corner. "It appears we're at your stop. I would get off now if I was you... or maybe I wouldn't. I'm not you so I don't know what I would do if I was you." He had plenty of questions for the River Person, but he decided it would be for the best if he just left now before he could get a headache.

He stepped off the boat and onto the purple grass. He stood there for a moment, feeling slightly embarrassed by the way everyone turned to look at him. Everyone stared at him for a moment before going back to minding their own business. Jeremiah felt no small amount of relief due to no longer being the center of attention. Jeremiah wasn't sure if being so close to Sans was a good idea, but Chara made sure he knew she thought it was a horrible one. So out of a desire to stop her complaining, he went to walk out of the room without speaking to anyone. But before he could, he realized he hadn't thanked the river person for helping him. He turned around to thank them, but where there was once a boat there was now only a waterfall. Jeremiah gawked at the sight. "How…" Jeremiah began to ask in complete and utter bafflement. "Jeremiah, don't question anything the river person does, the answer will probably just be even more confusing," Chara answered before he could finish. Jeremiah didn't want to take that advice, but he didn't see any other options. So with a sigh, he walked away.

* * *

Jeremiah let out a sigh of relief once he reached the other side of the waterfall. "I told you it would be alright." Jeremiah felt like pointing out the fact the waterfall was right by a cliff, and there had been falling rocks that had almost knocked him off said cliff multiple times, but he was finally starting to realize arguing with Chara was like debating a wall. "Ahh thanks, Jeremy, I feel the same way about you." Unfortunately, Jeremiah fell for that, hook, line, and sinker. "My name isn't Jeremy, its..." He stopped when Chara started to snicker. His only response was to grit his teeth and continue onwards.

Soon enough they came to what Jeremiah could only describe as slightly mind-boggling. The purple grass ahead was at least double the height of him. Having spent his entire life up to this point in a desert, grass this tall (let alone grass that was the color purple) was something he never thought was possible. It was such a sight, it made him forget his anger for a moment. "Chara... how did this grass get so tall?" Chara's reply was quick and almost instantly crushed any semblance of joy the sight brought him. "Magic."

The only emotion the sight gave him now was disdain. Earlier, when he was in the forest, he didn't know what to think of such benign uses of magic, but now after near-drowning to death thanks to that skeleton looking to capture him for some occult ritual that involved his soul, he knew what he thought of it. "Chara, you lived down here before, tell me, how many of their own kind have they sacrificed for magic like this?" Needless to say, Chara had no idea how to even begin answering that question, but thankfully she noticed something that gave her an out. "Jeremiah, hide in that grass, I think I see Papyrus!" As soon as she said that name all of his anger evaporated and he dived into the grass.

"Where is he?" Jeremiah asked Chara in a panic.

"He's up on the ridge above us. It looks like he's talking with some guy in armor." Jeremiah strained his ears to try and hear what they were talking about, but it was no use. "What do you think they're talking about?" Jeremiah asked. "He's probably threatening whoever it is." Jeremiah frowned and felt no small amount of pity for whatever poor soul was stuck up there with him.

Jeremiah waited in the grass for a few minutes until Chara said the coast was clear. He slowly walked out of the grass, nervous about Papyrus lurking around some dark corner. As he walked out of the grass, someone else did as well. It was Monster Kid, he seemed to be excited, at least until he noticed Jeremiah. But he hid his disappointment quickly enough. "Yo, did you see Undyne right now? She was totally telling that Papyrus dude what to do! So she's definitely in charge of the royal guard, not him."

_Well, that explains why they were talking to each other_. "Hey Chara, do you think he was threatening this Undyne person?" Chara's reply was swift. "Of course. He's probably told her he would kill someone she cares about if she doesn't kill you!" Jeremiah nodded before realizing a flaw in her idea. "But didn't he want to kill me himself?" Chara seemed to have an answer ready as if she had planned this all out in her head beforehand. "He did, but that freak probably thinks it's more amusing to have this apparent defender of the innocent murder an innocent." Jeremiah nodded like what she said made sense. As he did so, he realized he had just been staring blankly at monster kid, who looked pretty uncomfortable. Hoping to save face, he answered his crippled reptilian friend. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but I think you've gotten it mixed it up. Papyrus was obviously threatening Undyne." Monster kid just stared at him for a moment before sighing and walking away.

* * *

Jeremiah walked into the next room and saw his path was blocked by a small body of water. He looked around him, looking for any way to cross. Chara began to explain what to do almost instinctively. "This is a bridge seed puzzle, it's pretty easy. Just do what I tell you…"

"I'm done!" Jeremiah exclaimed excitedly. It was at that moment Chara noticed that he had in fact completed the puzzle. "But how? I never told you what to do." Jeremiah couldn't help but smirk as he pointed at the plaque. "It said how the puzzle worked right there, it was honestly pretty easy once I figured that out." Chara was silent for a moment before letting out a humph. "Well then, if you don't need my help I'll let you do the rest of these bridge puzzles yourself." Jeremiah smirk remained on his face as he crossed the bridge. But that smirk quickly vanished when a monster popped out of seemingly nowhere.

It was a strange creature that had the upper half of a horse, while the lower half was covered in scales and looked like a fishtail. That wasn't mentioning the fact it had two extremely muscular human arms. "Do you lift brah?" Jeremiah blinked in surprise at the question. "What?" The creature began to flex and... dozens of miniature muscular arms began to rain down towards him. "What?" He asked again, but much louder this time. "That's Aaron! Those little arms are magic, they'll hurt you if you touch them!" Jeremiah took note of only two things she said. The first being the name of the monster in front of him, Aaron. Aaron was the name of the brother of Moses, who was also the first priest of Israel. The second thing he took note of was the fact that Aaron was disgracing the name of their predecessor by using witchcraft. Of course, because he was too consumed by the idea he was degrading the name of a great man, he didn't think to dodge any attacks.

Pain flared through him when one of the arms hit him on the head, causing him to scream and fall to the ground. As he lay on the ground, even more arms hit him. Yet despite how bad the pain felt, he could tell the pain wasn't in his body, it felt like it was hurting his very soul. This made sense, it was witchcraft and apparently, these savages were interested in souls. "Are you ok?" Chara asked, her voice laced with concern. As she asked the question the pain seemed to dull. He slowly pulled himself off the ground. "Yes, I'm ok." He glared at the smirking fish horse guy (he refused to call him by his name until he earned it). "Why glare when you can flex (;" Chara was silent for a moment before asking. "How... did he just say parenthesis semicolon? What is that even supposed to... never mind." Jeremiah shared in her confusion, but the fact even more magic arms were falling down towards him distracted him from thinking about answers.

He did better this time, mainly because he actually tried dodging. He only got hit three times this go around. But unlike last time, when one hit was enough to send him to the ground, he didn't fall this time, he was too **Determined**. Once the attack stopped, he glared at his attacker once more. "Listen here, you need to stop this... save yourself from hellfire." His attacker's only response was, "Wut?" Followed by even more attacks. As he dodged the attacks, Chara spoke up. "I don't think just glaring at him is going to stop him. Why don't you try flexing instead, that made the Aaron's back in my day pretty happy." Jeremiah shook his head, his anger slowly reaching a boiling point as he got hit again. "I refuse to play along with this prideful fool's game. I'll teach him why witchcraft is a sin."

For whatever reason Chara seemed to become worried by this statement. "Jeremiah, what are you planning to do?" Jeremiah let out a chuckle and said. "To teach this fool a lesson." Chara grew silent after this, but he could tell she was worried about something. When the attack finally ended, Jeremiah reached into his knapsack and pulled out his bible. He flipped through the pages and smirked when he found it. "Leviticus chapter twenty, verse six, says 'If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.' There are many other verses like this, all condemning your magic. If you don't stop using it, you will be sent to the lake of eternal fire! So repent!"

Jeremiah took a large gulp of air as he finished. For whatever reason, Chara seemed to be feeling relieved. Aaron just stared at him for a moment before saying, "Ok." And leaving the room. The pair was quiet for a moment until Chara said. "You... win? I think he left some gold on the ground." Jeremiah noticed a small pile of gold coins sitting on the ground. "Did he leave this here on accident?" Chara told him that it wasn't an accident and that monsters usually leave gold after a fight. Jeremiah shrugged and picked up the gold and counted it, there were ten gold coins in total.

Jeremiah sighed. "At least he left..." Jeremiah was interrupted by his own sudden and violent coughing. He instinctively raised his sleeve up to his mouth as he coughed. After a minute of violent hacking, it finally passed. He let out a sigh of relief as he pulled his arm away. "Oh my God, are you alright?" Jeremiah was about to tell her not to take the Lord's name in vain, but he took note of her question. "What do you mean?" He could tell that question angered and baffled her. "What do I mean? You just coughed up blood!" Jeremiah blinked and looked down at the sleeve, the green and yellow were now replaced by red. "Oh, that's normal."

After a whole lot of screaming on Chara's part about how coughing up blood isn't normal, Jeremiah was finally able to explain that was just a side effect of the blight. That seemed to calm her down, albeit only slightly. "Well even if that's normal, I still want you to rest." Jeremiah raised an eyebrow. "Where am I supposed to do that? I don't care about sitting on the ground, but I rather not have Papyrus murdering me in my sleep." Chara was silent for a moment before answering. "I know a spot."

Chara had told him to put the bridge seeds towards the bottom of the room. The seeds sprouted and made another small bridge. He walked down said bridge and found a small room just like Chara described. Inside the room were a bench and a blue flower. As he made his way towards the bench, a voice appeared from seemingly nowhere. "I just couldn't handle the responsibility." Jeremiah looked around the room in a panic, searching for the source. But the only other thing in the room beside him or the bench was the flower. He took a slow step back. "Chara... is that Flowey? I know he wasn't blue but..." He was interrupted by her bursting into laughter. "That's just an echo flower. It repeats whatever the last thing it heard." Jeremiah stared at the Flower in disbelief. "You're lying." He said aloud, hoping to prove her wrong. "You're lying." The flower repeated. Chara snickered at him, but he couldn't help but have a big dumb smile plastered on his face.

After spending a few minutes telling the flower different things, Chara asked something. "What do you think they meant about not being able to handle the responsibility?" Jeremiah hummed in thought for a moment before replying. "I don't know." Chara was silent for a moment until she said. "I think I see something underneath the bench." Jeremiah turned around and lo and behold, Chara was right, there was something underneath the bench.

Jeremiah got on his knees and pulled out whatever was underneath the bench. It looked like a completed version of the pie Toriel had baked him. "Looks like you found the abandoned quiche." He knew Chara was saying it in jest, (although he had no idea what a quiche was and how Chara knew it was one) but something about the fact someone had so carelessly left this poor and innocent quiche in the middle of nowhere, in a place anything could find and kill it, made him feel horrible. He could tell Chara was feeling the same emotion as him, even though he had no idea why a bloody pastry of all things was making them both so emotional.

Eventually, he couldn't take the guilt and opened his knapsack up and stuffed the quiche into it. This action gave the pair some relief, but as he laid down on the bench to sleep, he couldn't help but think how much of a cowardly savage that quiche's parents had to be. To leave him in the wilderness to die, just because he was born the wrong way.

* * *

Sans sighed as he walked into one of the many rooms in waterfall. "I did what you asked. You gonna keep up the end of your bargain?" The other person in the room just stared at him, at least Sans thought they were staring at him, with this weirdo it was always hard to tell. "You let the child almost drown to death." Their voice was blank but held a hint of irritation. Sans just shrugged and responded. "Hey, I was pretty dog-tired after tricking the royal guard and the entire population of Snowdin into leaving the kid alone. Besides, I figured water is your territory, so I knew you'd save the kid." The River Person was quiet for a moment before letting out a humph. "Fair enough. Your debt to Grilby is now a thing of the past." They were both quiet for a moment before the river person added. "Well, I have to get back to watching a human in the water and a fallen child. Tra la la, don't forget slothfulness is a vice." With that, their boat sprouted legs and began to run along the river, leaving Sans in the room alone.

* * *

**(AN) So... It looks like Jeremiah might have a slight abandonment problem. Anyways, I have some stuff planned for the River Person that I'm not sure if it's really cool, insane, or just really dumb, hopefully, it's just one of the first two. I tried to plant a hint that's honestly really obscure, that's more than likely is just going to be completely overlooked unless one is looking for it. Also, I actually made an outline! Yes, this story so far was mostly just me winging it with a few vague ideas of what I wanted to happen in the story. But now I have an actual, admittedly very vague outline. Although I've slightly broken it already by combining two chapters into this one, but that doesn't matter. The total amount of chapters is going to be around twenty-eight, including the ones I've already done, so we're looking at around twenty more chapters. But chapters may be combined like this one was, or maybe split into two, we'll have to see. The next chapter will feature the mandatory Gaster Cameo, pretty sure there's a fine if you don't include him. But despite me thinking he's an overrated character like Sans, (yes, I know that saying Sans is overrated will get you lynched by the fandom) I think I have a pretty unique idea on how to handle him. **

**A little tidbit about this chapter, it's actually my first draft. I usually make three drafts, the second one being just me remaking scenes I didn't like, and the third being a mesh of different parts I liked from both drafts and spell checking. But I really liked the way this chapter turned out, so I just went ahead and mildly changed some scenes and fixed some spelling mistakes. Hopefully, this wasn't a horrible mistake.**

**Also in IRL news, next month should be my last month on Accutane! Thank God, I don't have to worry about chapped lips and the occasional bout of depression anymore! **

**I hope you enjoyed this story so far, if you did, please leave a review. (Thank you to the guest who left me a review, I really appreciate it and I hope that I can finish this story.) But even if you hate this story, please leave a review and tell me why. Criticism, no matter how harsh, can only help improve someone. Also, I just love seeing what people think about my work. Have a wonderful day, and God bless.**


	9. Romans 9:13

**(AN) So just a little heads up, my attempt at using Wingdings this chapter kinda made my google docs a little glitchy, so I couldn't get my spell checker to work on this chapter. Also, I don't think the Wingdings is even going to be fully work on FFN, because I did a little test and it seems like half of it disappears when put on FFN. So towards the bottom of the chapter I have a little translation key that goes in order of what Gaster says. So the first translation will be the first sentence he says. That's all I really have to say right now besides I really enjoyed making this chapter and God bless.**

* * *

Jeremiah was roused out of his sleep by someone shaking his shoulder. "What is it?" He groaned out, his eyes still closed. "Brother Gable needs someone to deliver this mail to Father Greene, and seeing that you're doing nothing but sleeping…" Jeremiah sighed and pulled himself out of the bed, doing his best to not glare at Brother Cross. Brother Cross was always looking to shirk some duty into Jeremiah, if Jeremiah was meaner, he would accuse Brother Cross of being slothful. But Jeremiah liked to think Brother Cross just really trusted him to get the job done.

As soon as he was standing up, Brother Cross pushed a small bundle of letters into his hand. Some of them looked like they were written on the finest of papers, while others were clearly just written over the ancient currency known as the Dollar. "Do you know who the letters are from?" Jeremiah asked Brother Cross. The older man just shrugged. "None of my business." Jeremiah looked up at Brother Cross then looked back down at the letters. _Who in the world would be sending letters to a random monk in a monastery in the middle of nowhere? Not only that, they're obviously all from different people. _"Can I read them?" Brother Cross scowled at him. "No." Jeremiah deflated slightly but he figured he could just ask Father Greene about it.

It didn't take Jeremiah long to reach Father Green's room. He knew he didn't need to, but he knocked on the door for politeness' sake. "Come on in." Jeremiah wasn't too surprised to hear Father Caiaphes instead of Father Greene. If Father Caiaphes was like his… well father, Father Greene would be like his grandfather. The pair were rather close with each other as well, Father Greene was the one who converted Father Caiaphes after all.

Jeremiah pushed the door open and stepped inside the room. The pair were in their usual position hunching over a desk, with Father Greene sitting in the chair facing towards the door, while Father Caiaphes had his back to the door. But they both looked up from the desk to look at him as he stepped into the room. Father Greene's eyes landed on the bundle of letters in his hand and he gave him a wide and toothless grin. "Brother Cross push his work onto you again?" Jeremiah hesitated for a moment before nodding. Father Greene let out a laugh. Father Caiaphes didn't seem to find it nearly as amusing. "He really needs to stop making children do his work for him." Father Greene let out another laugh. "But isn't that what you were just asking for permission to do?"

Jeremiah looked over at Father Caiaphas, confused as to what Father Greene was talking about. Father Caiaphes for his part just seemed slightly more annoyed. "I'm not looking to shirk my duties onto the boy, I just want him to have a chance to leave this place and get a chance to see something else besides dusty old books." Jeremiah just stared blankly at the pair, wondering what they could possibly be suggesting. Father Greene just waved his hand at Father Caiaphas dismissively. "I'm just teasing you. I realize we can't have the boy cooped up here for his entire life. Besides, I think you'll enjoy this Jeremiah." He turned around to face Jeremiah as he said the last bit. Jeremiah didn't know why, but he felt nervous as he asked. "What do you mean?" Father Greene, still smiling, answered his question with a question. "How do you feel about going on a mission trip?" Jeremiah's eyes became as wide as saucers. "Now?" He cringed almost as soon as he asked the question, he hadn't meant to yell it out. But the pair didn't seem to mind too much. Well, Father Caiaphes seemed annoyed but that seemed to be directed at Father Greene.

But when he turned his glare towards Jeremiah, it softened. "Of course not now. We won't be leaving until next month." Jeremiah shook slightly and asked in a voice barely above a whisper. "Leaving?" Father Caiaphes's glare fully disappeared and a soft smile took its place. "Me and Father Greene have been talking about this for a while now, and we both think this would be for the best for you. Not only that, we both fully believe you'll enjoy this. But we won't force you to go if you don't want to, the choice is ultimately yours after all." Jeremiah uncounsinly began to wring his hands and he suddenly found the floor very interesting. "I know I should go. But I have the Blight, won't that scare whatever savage tribe we're trying to convert?"

"Jeremiah! What did I tell you about using the S word?" Jeremiah looked up at the now irritated Father Greene in surprise, but he quickly realized his mistake. He looked over at Father Caiaphas and muttered out an apology. Father Caiaphas just laughed and said. "It's ok Jeremiah, no offense taken. I know I used to be the most savage of savages." Father Caiaphes had made that claim before, but always refused to elaborate on it. Jeremiah had a pretty strong feeling that it was just a joke, Father Caiaphes probably just used to be a herdsman or something. "Anyways, you don't need to worry about any of the members of the Thunderbird tribe. They're quite friendly to our missionaries so far and they don't have any major superstitions about the Blight. Not only that, I asked their Chief Judge if it was alright for you to come, and he said it was."

Jeremiah was silent. He knew what he wanted to do,

what he needed to do, but he didn't know if he had the courage. This would be the first time he had ever left home, going out into the vast wilderness to convert supposedly friendly savages. Eventually Father Caiaphes spoke up. "You don't have to decide now." Jeremiah sighed in relief. "Thank you." With that, Jeremiah went to leave the room, but Father Greene spoke up before he did. "Jeremiah?" Jeremiah turned around and saw Father Greene was holding up the bundle of letters. "Do you want to stay here and read some of these letters with me and Father Caiaphes?" Jeremiah smiled. "I would love to." He took a step forward and the world around him dissolved.

* * *

Jeremiah let out a yawn as he opened his eyes. "Sleep good?" Chara asked. Jeremiah nodded, causing Chara to feel smug. "I told you that you needed sleep." Jeremiah nodded again and admitted. "You were right, thanks for telling me about this spot." Chara felt slightly satisfied that she got him to admit he was wrong and told him it was no problem. He then got off the bench and started to leave the room. "Hey Chara, how long was I asleep?" He could feel Chara shrugging. "I don't know, it's not like I have a watch or something. It felt like an awful look time though. Then again, that could just be because I had nothing to do but sit and stare at you sleeping… so it was pretty boring. By the way, did you know, you snore really loudly?" Jeremiah blushed. "You could've just read my Bible if you were bored." Chara was silent for a moment before asking. "You do realize I don't have a body, right? I couldn't flip the pages… or even take it out of your bag." Jeremiah felt stupid for a moment but quickly recovered. "I could read it to you, if you like." Chara let out a nervous chuckle. "But then you won't be getting any sleep." Jeremiah shook his head. "No, I know I can't read it to you when I'm asleep, but I was thinking I could just read it to you later."

Chara was silent and he could tell she was uncomfortable. Jeremiah had no idea why though. He tried to come up with different reasons as to why she would be uncomfortable and he felt stupid once he realized it. She actually lived in ancient America, so she can definitely read ancient English way better than him. She probably just couldn't be bothered listening to someone butchering her language and was too embarrassed to tell him. Feeling humiliated, Jeremiah backtracked. "I can just flip the pages for you and you can read it." Chara hesitated for a moment before sighing. "Sure." Jeremiah's humiliation was dampened by his excitement. Finally, he had someone who wasn't an old man to be a Bible study partner with!

* * *

Jeremiah completed the bridge sprout puzzle with ease. Chara had taken back her earlier refusal to help but Jeremiah politely declined her help, wanting to do it on his own. He was telling Chara a joke about a Cowboy and a Mormon when he walked into the next room. The punchline died on his lips when he saw what was inside. "Oh… oh… oh my." Chara chuckled at his shock and asked rather proudly. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" Jeremiah didn't really need to answer her question because the answer was obvious. The roof of the room was covered in bright bluish silver gems that bathed the room in light. Being honest, if Jeremiah didn't know he was deep under a mountain, he could've easily mistaken them for stars. _Did Saint Tolkien get the idea for the Silmarils from these gems?_

He eventually forced himself to look away from the beautiful gems and tried to gather his wits. As he did so, he took note of a plaque that read, "Wishing room." He blinked in confusion. Chara took note of his confusion and explained. "Monsters have been trapped down here for a really long time. So most monsters have never seen an actual star before, they've only ever had these little gems. Not sure if they still do this, but back in my day they use to make wishes to these gems for freedom." Jeremiah frowned at what she said. The fact these savages believed in astrology shouldn't have surprised him, but it still left him feeling disappointed. But another thing she said disturbed him far more than monsters practicing astrology, something he needed to ask her about. "Chara… what do you mean by the monsters being trapped down here?"

He could tell Chara was surprised by his question, but she was quick to recover. "Well that's a bit of a long story. Do you remember how Toriel mentioned a war between humans and monsters?" Jeremiah was confused by the question but took a moment to try and remember what she was talking about. Once he did, he snapped his fingers. "I do. Wasn't that literally right before she revealed that she was a witch?" Chara groaned, she really didn't have time to debate her mother's innocence with Jeremiah. Well she actually did but it was starting to get extremely repetitive. "Yes, it was right before you took a panic attack and accused her of child murder." Jeremiah cringed slightly at the memory and tried to shove it out of his head as quickly as possible. It wasn't just because the memory made him feel guilty, he also needed to focus on the memory of that book she read to him. It didn't take him long to remember the part that would be relevant to his question. "The humans trapped them down here with magic?" He could feel Chara nodding. "But didn't Toriel say that war happened before Columbus landed?" Chara let out another sad sigh. "Yes."

Jeremiah did some quick mental math on how long that would've been at the least. The higher the number for how many years they've been trapped down here got, the more sick and empty he felt. "They've been stuck down here for at least a thousand years?" Chara nodded grimly, causing him to let out a small gasp of shock. _Being stuck down here for a thousand of years without ever seeing the sun, moon, or stars… that's_\- "Terrible?" Chara finished. Jeremiah didn't respond, he just looked down at the ground sadly.

He stood there quietly for what seemed like forever, until he eventually asked. "Why would they trap them down here like that? I know that since they were using magic, whatever tribe locked them down here couldn't have been good people, but…" Chara answered before could finish asking his question. "The next room has a few plaques explaining the war a whole lot better than I can." Jeremiah sighed and gave the gems one last glance. Somehow, they seemed a lot less bright now.

He then went to leave the room. But when he went to go walk down the hallway that he assumed would be the exit, he saw a wall blocking his path. "It's a fake wall, just give it a little push and the exit will appear." He did as she said and lo and behold, an exit appeared.

* * *

Calling the next room just a room would be wrong. For starters, this was probably one of the bigger rooms Jeremiah had seen down here yet. Furthermore, it was less of a room and more of a lake with a wooden platform built on top of it. "Chara, do you think this is safe to walk on?" Chara just laughed and pointed out it couldn't be any worse than the bridge to Snowdin. Jeremiah winced at the memory and admitted she had a point. He took a step onto the wooden platform and started to slowly walk down it, making sure to only walk on the middle of the platform. He didn't want to fall into the water again and couldn't count on the River Person saving him a second time. It didn't take him long to reach the first of the plaques Chara had told him about. Written in ancient looking carvings were the words. "The war between humans and monsters." The softer side of Jeremiah tried to prepare himself for what had to be a tragic train wreck of a story that resulted in these poor souls being trapped down here. While the part of him that loved to study history was practically leaping with excitement.

Jeremiah took his time reading every single one of the plaques. Every sentence he read had left him with a million more questions. Questions like, _Why did God make human souls stronger? Why would God create something capable of stealing someone else's soul?_ And finally, _How does absorbing someone's else's soul make something stronger? _ He felt tempted to barrage Chara with all of those questions, but he stopped himself. Those five little plaques had given him a lot to think about, it would probably be for the best if he thought about what questions to even ask her first. Of course, that wasn't even getting started on the image of what a monster with a human soul looked like. The carving looked like something out of the nightmares of a madman, or maybe something from the deepest pits of Hell.

Chara had been silent ever since he started to read them, he figured she knew he had a lot to process. So they both continued on their journey silently. Jeremiah enjoyed the silence since it gave him time to think. _So the humans were afraid of getting their souls stolen, understandable. Especially since the monsters are trying to steal my soul right now, and they've apparently already have done it six times before. _Despite Jeremiah knowing it should be that simple, something was screaming at him it couldn't be that simple, there had to be more to this. _Chara lived down here for a while, why didn't they kill her? Maybe they did and she just doesn't remember? Or maybe Toriel and her friend protected her… that seems likely. She also seems to think Asgore couldn't have murdered any children… maybe he protected her as well? _It was at this point Chara chose to speak up. "I guess you could say the three of them protected me. Also I do remember how I died, it wasn't anything too crazy, I just got sick." She sounded nonchalant but Jeremiah could feel what she was saying was upsetting her. He was about to apologize when Chara told him not to bother.

The pair eventually reached the end of the bridge. What awaited them was another patch of tall purple grass that Jeremiah couldn't see the end of. Jeremiah couldn't help but be nervous as he walked through the grass, with how tall it was, he could never be certain if he was going the right way. Not only that, he had an odd feeling something else was in the grass… watching him. "Don't worry about it, I don't see anything in there with you." Jeremiah raised an eyebrow at Chara. "Can you see anything with all this grass?" Chara just let out a nervous chuckle, which he took as an answer. He started to walk faster. He looked from side to side, wondering if Papyrus or this Undyne person was waiting here to capture him. Jeremiah suddenly stopped in his tracks. "Did you hear that?" He asked Chara. Chara just sighed and asked. "Hear what?" Almost as soon as she asked, there was a rustling of grass followed by the sound of someone breathing. Chara's nonchalance vanished in an instant. "Ok, I would probably start running now." Jeremiah didn't need to be told, because he was already running away.

Jeremiah ran down the hallway as fast as he could. "Jeremiah you need to find someplace to hide!" "And where would that be?" He asked her in a panic. Chara was silent for a moment before shouting. "There's a door to your left!" He looked to his left and there was a white door, just like Chara said. He ran up to it and twisted the knob. At first, much to his dismay, nothing happened. But after the third attempt the door opened. He quickly ran inside and slammed the door shut.

* * *

Monster Kid just stared at the weirdo running down the hallway. "Wonder what got him so worked up?"

* * *

Jeremiah let out a sigh of relief as he locked the door. "Oh thank God we're safe." Chara let out a dark chuckle and said. "Not really, I was always going to be safe. I'm already dead, remember? So the only one who was in danger was you." Jeremiah turned around and gave Chara an unimpressed look. But almost as soon as he did this, he realized something pretty big. "Chara… why can I see you?" Chara looked down at herself, seemingly surprised. After a moment, she replied. "I don't know." Suddenly, Jeremiah could hear something or someone speaking in his head. "✋︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎■︎⬧︎⬥︎ ︎❒︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎? ﾸﾎ" He had no idea what they were saying and unlike when Chara spoke to him, it hurt to listen to. It felt like someone was trying to crack his skull open with a chisel. Chara didn't seem to be in any pain, but did seem worried about him. "Are you ok, what happened?" She offered her hand out to him, causing him to realize he had fallen on the ground. He accepted her hand and she helped pull him up. After a moment of trying to gather his wits, he answered her. "Yes, I'm fine. Did you hear that?" His answer just seemed to make her even more worried. "Hear what?" Jeremiah was just about to wonder if he had gone insane, when the words appeared again. "? ﾸﾎ□︎❒︎❒︎⍓︎? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎□︎⧫︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎◆︎❒︎⧫︎? ﾸﾎ ✋︎⬧︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎□︎❒︎❍︎ □︎ ︎ ︎□︎❍︎❍︎◆︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎□︎■︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎⧫︎ ︎❒︎✍︎"

Unlike last time, when the words were formed in his head, this time they appeared in front of him and in midair. Chara took a step back, making sure to pull him with her. "Is that what you heard?" She asked. Jeremiah nodded. Chara was just about to reach for the doorknob when even more words formed in front of them. "? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎⧫︎? ﾸﾎ ◻︎●︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎ ︎□︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ●︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ⍓︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎●︎ ︎❒︎ ︎■︎✏︎ ︎⧫︎❼︎⬧︎ ⬧︎□︎ ●︎□︎■︎ ︎●︎⍓︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ︎✏︎" Chara stared at the words for a moment before she seem to remember something. Once she did, any worries she had evaporated. She let out a chuckle and nudged Jeremiah. "Don't worry about this guy, I can't believe I forgot about him." She then turned around to face the floating words. "Waddup G man? It's been a while. Where you at?" Jeremiah cringed at Chara's sudden loss of vocabulary, but felt some relief that she apparently knew this person. " ︎ ︎ ■︎□︎ ︎⧫︎❼︎⬧︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎? ﾸﾎ ? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ? ﾸﾎ? ﾸﾎ ◻︎●︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎ ●︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎□︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ⬥︎ ︎■︎⧫︎ ︎■︎⍓︎ ❖︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎⧫︎□︎❒︎⬧︎? ﾸﾎ"

Chara smiled and said, "So, you're at the back of the room?" Chara started to march towards the back of the room, still holding Jeremiah's hand, forcing him to come along with her. "Have to say, living in a random empty grey room in waterfall is kinda a downgrade from living in the royal lab. Did Papyrus force dad to fire you or something?" Jeremiah looked at Chara confused. "Dad?" He asked. She just ignored him. "? ﾸﾎ ︎□︎ ︎⬧︎ ◻︎ ︎◻︎⍓︎❒︎◆︎⬧︎✍︎ ︎□︎⬥︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ?￢ﾙﾓ︎■︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ︎□︎ ︎■︎⍓︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎✍︎ ⬥︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎? ﾸﾎ? ﾸﾎ? ﾸﾎ ︎⬧︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ⬧︎ ︎■︎⬧︎❼︎⬧︎ ︎❒︎□︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❒︎✍︎" Chara stopped walking for a moment to read the words, but once she finished she frowned. "So Papyrus did force Dad to fire you. Also yes, they are brothers." Jeremiah blinked in surprise and looked at Chara. "Wait can you understand what he's saying?" Chara didn't ignore him this time, instead she flashed him a smug grin. "Yep, he used to be the royal scientist so me and my friend would visit a lot. He taught me how to read his language after I asked him."

" ︎□︎? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ■︎□︎ ⬧︎◆︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ ✋︎ ?￢ﾗﾆ︎⬧︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ︎ ︎□︎□︎? □︎■︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ❍︎ ︎⧫︎⧫︎ ︎❒︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ❒︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ □︎■︎●︎⍓︎ □︎■︎ ︎ ︎✏︎" Chara let out a whimsical sigh. "Thanks again for those lessons G man." Eventually they reached the end of the room, yet there was still no sign of this "G man." Jeremiah turned his head left and then right, but he still couldn't see Chara's friend. "Hey G Man, where are you?" There was a pause before more of the strange symbols appeared before them both. "? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎ ︎" Then with a pop, a pile of black ooze appeared in front of them. At the top of the ooze was a skull leaking what Jeremiah assumed to be more of said black ooze. Jeremiah felt his heart leap out of his chest and felt tempted to run away right then and there. It wasn't only because the person in front of him was so freaky looking, or even his sudden appearance, but something about him felt… off, like Jeremiah was looking at something that shouldn't exist. But Chara's apparent comfort being so close to this person stopped him, (also the fact she held his hand so tightly he couldn't let go was another reason). Chara let out a low whistle. "Woah, what happened to you, G Man?" Somehow, the skull's smile turned into a frown. Jeremiah wasn't sure if that should comfort him or freak him out.

"✋︎ ⧫︎❒︎ ︎◻︎◻︎ ︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎●︎●︎ ︎■︎⧫︎□︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎◆︎⬧︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ●︎ ︎⌘︎⍓︎ ●︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎⬧︎ ︎⬧︎⧫︎ ︎■︎⧫︎ □︎ ︎ ❍︎ ︎■︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ ⬧︎ ︎■︎⬧︎? ﾸﾎ ❒︎ ︎ ︎◆︎⬧︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ◻︎ ︎ ︎? ◆︎◻︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎ ⬧︎□︎ ︎? ﾟﾓﾬ︎" Chara's eyes widened. "Sans is your son? And he pushed you into the core? Why?" Jeremiah blinked in surprise and asked. "Wait, does that make Papyrus your son too? Why would he have her dad…" He glanced over at Chara. "Wait, if he was the royal scientist wouldn't the king be the one to fire him?" Chara winced as he asked the question but nodded anyway. "So does that make your dad the…" Chara nodded again but seemed annoyed. "Can we talk about this later?" Her voice didn't imply much of a choice so he nodded. She then turned back around to face the former scientist once again. " ︎□︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⍓︎ ︎❒︎ ︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ❍︎⍓︎ ︎ ︎ ︎●︎ ︎❒︎ ︎■︎? ﾸﾎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎? ︎□︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ ︎■︎ ︎❼︎⬧︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎⧫︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ □︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ □︎■︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎ ◻︎❒︎□︎ ︎ ︎ ︎●︎⍓︎ ⬥︎□︎◆︎●︎ ︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ︎❖︎ ︎■︎ ︎□︎ ︎■︎⍓︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ⬧︎□︎❍︎ ︎□︎■︎ ︎ ❍︎◆︎❒︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ◻︎ ︎◻︎⍓︎❒︎◆︎⬧︎? ﾸﾎ ︎■︎⍓︎⬥︎ ︎⍓︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ︎❖︎ ︎■︎ ⬥︎ ︎■︎⧫︎ ⧫︎□︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ︎ ⬧︎ ︎■︎⬧︎? ﾸﾎ ︎◆︎⧫︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ︎●︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎ ︎❍︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ❍︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ︎❍︎? ﾸﾎ ︎□︎ ●︎□︎□︎? ︎⧫︎ ❍︎ ︎✏︎ ⬧︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎⧫︎ ︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎❒︎□︎◆︎ ︎ ︎□︎◆︎⧫︎ ⬧︎◻︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎❍︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎◆︎⬧︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎□︎◆︎●︎ ︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ◻︎ ︎ ︎? ◆︎◻︎ ︎ ︎ ︎❍︎■︎ ⬧︎□︎ ︎?￢ﾜﾏ︎"

Chara let out a gasp and a look of horror fell over her face. Jeremiah looked at her and asked rather nervously. "What did he say?" Chara didn't reply, instead she was shaking her head and muttering. "There's no way he would do that to mom." Jeremiah eventually had to shake her back to reality. She blinked in surprise before a look of anger fell upon her. She let go of Jeremiah's hand and pointed at the former scientist. "You homewrecker!" "? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎⧫︎✍︎" Jeremiah looked between the pair completely bewildered. "You just told me you and my dad had an affair and Papyrus and Sans were the result of it!" "? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎⧫︎✍︎" Jeremiah took a moment to process what such a relationship would entail and felt some bile come up his throat. "Wouldn't that make your dad a necrophile?" Chara whipped around to face him. "What?" She yelled at him. Jeremiah cringed and explained. "Well… he's a skeleton… a skeleton is just a really decomposed body… so if your father had a relationship with one… that would be considered necrophilia." Chara's expression became a strange mix of terror and anger.

Chara took a deep breath and Jeremiah realized he was about to get screamed at, when the homewrecker spoke up again. "✡︎□︎◆︎ ?￢ﾖﾠ︎□︎⬥︎ ⬥︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎✍︎ ︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎? ︎□︎⧫︎ ︎ □︎ ︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎? ﾸﾎ ✋︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎□︎⧫︎ ︎□︎⬥︎ ❍︎◆︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ □︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ◻︎ ︎□︎◻︎●︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ ✋︎❼︎●︎●︎ ︎ ︎◻︎◻︎ ︎●︎⍓︎ ︎□︎ ︎ ︎ ︎? ⧫︎□︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎❒︎? ❖︎□︎ ︎ ︎ ⬧︎□︎ ︎ ︎□︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ︎ ︎ ︎❒︎□︎◆︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎⧫︎⬧︎ ●︎ ︎?￢ﾙﾏ︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎■︎? ﾸﾎ ︎□︎⬥︎ ⬥︎□︎◆︎●︎ ︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ⧫︎⬥︎□︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎⧫︎⬧︎ ?￢ﾙﾓ︎■︎ ︎●︎⍓︎ ●︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ❍︎⍓︎ ❖︎□︎ ︎ ︎✍︎" Almost as soon as the words appeared, the floor underneath them vanished and they found themselves free falling into a dark abyss. They never even got a chance to scream before the world around them seemed to snap, and when they opened their eyes they were back in waterfall.

Jeremiah looked around in a panic. "How did we get here?" He asked Chara. Chara just stared at him in confusion. "We walked here, duh." Jeremiah's panic slowly disappeared… and despite his best attempts, he couldn't remember why he had been afraid in the first place. He let out an embarrassed chuckle and said. "Sorry, I don't know what just came over me." Chara shrugged. "Happens to the best of us." She then tried to put her hand on his shoulder, but her hand just went straight through it. She blushed and apologized but he told her it wasn't a big deal. Despite the fact that she was just a ghost only he could see, the idea of her being by his side and helping him the best she could, filled him **Determination**.

* * *

**(AN) So I got this chapter done pretty quickly, that's mainly because I finished the first draft in one day, thank God. I really enjoyed making the Gaster scene, but I don't know if the Wingdings are going to work on , so I have a translation for what exactly Gaster is supposed to be saying below.**

Gaster Translation

✋︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎■︎⬧︎⬥︎ ︎❒︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎? ﾸﾎ = "I︎ h︎a︎v︎e︎ the answer f︎o︎r︎ t︎h︎a︎t︎.

"? ﾸﾎ□︎❒︎❒︎⍓︎? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎□︎⧫︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎◆︎❒︎⧫︎? ﾸﾎ ✋︎⬧︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎□︎❒︎❍︎ □︎ ︎ ︎□︎❍︎❍︎◆︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎□︎■︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎⧫︎ ︎❒︎✍︎" = "S︎o︎r︎r︎y,︎ I forgot t︎h︎a︎t︎ c︎a︎n︎ h︎u︎r︎t︎.︎ I︎s︎ t︎h︎i︎s︎ f︎o︎r︎m︎ o︎f︎ c︎o︎m︎m︎u︎n︎i︎c︎a︎t︎i︎o︎n︎ b︎e︎t︎t︎e︎r︎?︎"

"? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎⧫︎? ﾸﾎ ◻︎●︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎ ︎□︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ●︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ⍓︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎●︎ ︎❒︎ ︎■︎✏︎ ︎⧫︎❼︎⬧︎ ⬧︎□︎ ●︎□︎■︎ ︎●︎⍓︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ︎✏︎"= "Wait, Pleas︎e︎ d︎o︎n't l︎e︎a︎v︎e︎ yet c︎h︎i︎l︎d︎ren!︎ i︎t︎ 's so lonely i︎n︎ h︎e︎r︎e︎!︎"

" ︎ ︎ ■︎□︎ ︎⧫︎❼︎⬧︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎? ﾸﾎ ? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ? ﾸﾎ? ﾸﾎ ◻︎●︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎ ●︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎□︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ⬥︎ ︎■︎⧫︎ ︎■︎⍓︎ ❖︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎⧫︎□︎❒︎⬧︎? ﾸﾎ" = "O︎h︎ n︎o︎ i︎t︎'s y︎o︎u︎.︎ U︎h︎h︎.︎.︎.︎ p︎l︎e︎a︎s︎e l︎e︎a︎v︎e︎,︎ I d︎o︎n︎'t w︎a︎n︎t︎ a︎n︎y︎ v︎i︎s︎i︎t︎o︎r︎s︎.︎"

"? ﾸﾎ ︎□︎ ︎⬧︎ ◻︎ ︎◻︎⍓︎❒︎◆︎⬧︎✍︎ ︎□︎⬥︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ?￢ﾙﾓ︎■︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ︎□︎ ︎■︎⍓︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎✍︎ ⬥︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎? ﾸﾎ? ﾸﾎ? ﾸﾎ ︎⬧︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ⬧︎ ︎■︎⬧︎❼︎⬧︎ ︎❒︎□︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❒︎✍︎" = "W︎h︎o︎ i︎s︎ p︎a︎p︎y︎r︎u︎s︎?︎ Ho︎w︎ c︎a︎n︎ h︎e︎ f︎o︎r︎c︎e︎ t︎h︎e︎ ki︎n︎g︎ t︎o︎ d︎o︎ a︎n︎y︎t︎h︎i︎n︎g︎?︎Wa︎i︎t︎.︎.︎.︎ i︎s︎n︎'t h︎e︎ t︎h︎a︎t︎ d︎e︎a︎d︎b︎e︎a︎t︎ s︎a︎n︎s︎'s b︎r︎o︎t︎h︎e︎r︎?︎"

" ︎□︎? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ■︎□︎ ⬧︎◆︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ ✋︎ ?￢ﾗﾆ︎⬧︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ︎ ︎□︎□︎? □︎■︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ❍︎ ︎⧫︎⧫︎ ︎❒︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ❒︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ □︎■︎●︎⍓︎ □︎■︎ ︎ ︎✏︎" = "N︎o︎,︎ I d︎i︎d︎ n︎o︎ s︎u︎c︎h︎ t︎h︎i︎n︎g︎.︎ I︎ ju︎s︎t︎ g︎a︎v︎e︎ y︎o︎u︎ a︎ b︎o︎o︎k o︎n︎ t︎h︎e︎ m︎a︎t︎t︎e︎r︎ t︎h︎a︎t︎ y︎o︎u︎ r︎e︎a︎d︎ o︎n︎l︎y︎ o︎n︎c︎e︎!︎"

"? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎ ︎" = Sigh

"✋︎ ⧫︎❒︎ ︎◻︎◻︎ ︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎●︎●︎ ︎■︎⧫︎□︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎◆︎⬧︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ●︎ ︎⌘︎⍓︎ ●︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎⬧︎ ︎⬧︎⧫︎ ︎■︎⧫︎ □︎ ︎ ❍︎ ︎■︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ ⬧︎ ︎■︎⬧︎? ﾸﾎ ❒︎ ︎ ︎◆︎⬧︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ◻︎ ︎ ︎? ◆︎◻︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎ ⬧︎□︎ ︎? ﾟﾓﾬ︎" = "I︎ t︎r︎i︎p︎p︎e︎d︎ a︎n︎d︎ f︎e︎l︎l︎ i︎n︎t︎o︎ t︎h︎e︎ c︎o︎r︎e︎ b︎e︎c︎a︎u︎s︎e︎ t︎h︎a︎t︎ l︎a︎z︎y︎ l︎a︎b︎ a︎s︎s︎i︎s︎t︎a︎n︎t︎ o︎f︎ m︎i︎n︎e︎,︎ s︎a︎n︎s︎,︎ r︎e︎f︎u︎s︎e︎d t︎o p︎i︎c︎k u︎p︎ h︎i︎s︎ s︎o︎c︎k."

" ︎□︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⍓︎ ︎❒︎ ︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ❍︎⍓︎ ︎ ︎ ︎●︎ ︎❒︎ ︎■︎? ﾸﾎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎? ︎□︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ ︎■︎ ︎❼︎⬧︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎⧫︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ □︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ □︎■︎ ︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎ ◻︎❒︎□︎ ︎ ︎ ︎●︎⍓︎ ⬥︎□︎◆︎●︎ ︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ︎❖︎ ︎■︎ ︎□︎ ︎■︎⍓︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ⬧︎□︎❍︎ ︎□︎■︎ ︎ ❍︎◆︎❒︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ◻︎ ︎◻︎⍓︎❒︎◆︎⬧︎? ﾸﾎ ︎■︎⍓︎⬥︎ ︎⍓︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ︎❖︎ ︎■︎ ⬥︎ ︎■︎⧫︎ ⧫︎□︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ︎ ⬧︎ ︎■︎⬧︎? ﾸﾎ ︎◆︎⧫︎ ︎⬧︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ︎●︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎ ︎❍︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ❍︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ︎❍︎? ﾸﾎ ︎□︎ ●︎□︎□︎? ︎⧫︎ ❍︎ ︎✏︎ ⬧︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎⧫︎ ︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎❒︎□︎◆︎ ︎ ︎□︎◆︎⧫︎ ⬧︎◻︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎■︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎❍︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎◆︎⬧︎ ︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎□︎◆︎●︎ ︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ◻︎ ︎ ︎? ◆︎◻︎ ︎ ︎ ︎❍︎■︎ ⬧︎□︎ ︎?￢ﾜﾏ︎" = "N︎o︎ t︎h︎e︎y︎ a︎r︎e︎n︎'t︎ m︎y︎ c︎h︎i︎l︎d︎r︎e︎n︎,︎ t︎h︎a︎n︎k g︎o︎d︎.︎ O︎n︎e︎'s a︎n︎ i︎d︎i︎o︎t︎ a︎n︎d︎ t︎h︎e︎ o︎t︎h︎e︎r︎ o︎n︎e︎ i︎s︎ a︎ d︎e︎a︎d︎b︎e︎a︎t︎.︎ H︎e︎ p︎r︎o︎b︎a︎b︎l︎y︎ w︎o︎u︎l︎d︎n︎'t e︎v︎e︎n︎ d︎o︎ a︎n︎y︎t︎h︎i︎n︎g︎ i︎f︎ s︎o︎m︎e︎o︎n︎e︎ m︎u︎r︎d︎e︎r︎e︎d︎ his brother.︎ Anyway, I d︎i︎d︎n︎'t e︎v︎e︎n︎ w︎a︎n︎t︎ t︎o︎ h︎i︎r︎e︎ s︎a︎n︎s︎,︎ b︎u︎t︎ a︎s︎g︎o︎r︎e︎ f︎e︎l︎t︎ b︎a︎d︎ f︎o︎r︎ h︎i︎m︎ a︎n︎d︎ f︎o︎r︎c︎e︎d︎ m︎e︎ t︎o︎ h︎i︎r︎e︎ h︎i︎m︎.︎ N︎o︎w look a︎t︎ m︎e︎!︎ Sc︎a︎t︎t︎e︎r︎e︎d︎ t︎h︎r︎o︎u︎g︎h︎o︎u︎t︎ s︎p︎a︎c︎e︎ a︎n︎d︎ t︎i︎m︎e︎ b︎e︎c︎a︎u︎s︎e︎ t︎h︎a︎t︎ d︎e︎a︎d︎b︎e︎a︎t︎ c︎o︎u︎l︎d︎n︎'t b︎e︎ b︎o︎t︎h︎e︎r︎e︎d︎ t︎o︎ p︎i︎c︎k u︎p︎ a︎ d︎a︎m︎n︎ s︎o︎c︎k!"

"? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎⧫︎✍︎" = "What?"

"✡︎□︎◆︎ ?￢ﾖﾠ︎□︎⬥︎ ⬥︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎✍︎ ︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎■︎? ︎□︎⧫︎ ︎ □︎ ︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎? ﾸﾎ ✋︎ ︎□︎❒︎ ︎□︎⧫︎ ︎□︎⬥︎ ❍︎◆︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎ □︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❒︎ ◻︎ ︎□︎◻︎●︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ ✋︎❼︎●︎●︎ ︎ ︎◻︎◻︎ ︎●︎⍓︎ ︎□︎ ︎ ︎ ︎? ⧫︎□︎ ⧫︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎❒︎? ❖︎□︎ ︎ ︎ ⬧︎□︎ ︎ ︎□︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ⧫︎□︎ ︎ ︎ ︎❒︎□︎◆︎■︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎⧫︎⬧︎ ●︎ ︎?￢ﾙﾏ︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎■︎? ﾸﾎ ︎□︎⬥︎ ⬥︎□︎◆︎●︎ ︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ⧫︎⬥︎□︎ ︎ ︎ ︎□︎⧫︎⬧︎ ?￢ﾙﾓ︎■︎ ︎●︎⍓︎ ●︎ ︎ ︎❖︎ ︎ ❍︎⍓︎ ❖︎□︎ ︎ ︎✍︎" = "Y︎o︎u︎ kn︎o︎w︎ w︎h︎a︎t︎?︎ I h︎a︎v︎e︎ t︎o︎ t︎h︎a︎n︎k b︎o︎t︎h︎ o︎f︎ y︎o︎u︎.︎ I︎ f︎o︎r︎g︎o︎t︎ h︎o︎w︎ m︎u︎c︎h︎ i︎ h︎a︎t︎e︎d︎ o︎t︎h︎e︎r︎ p︎e︎o︎p︎l︎e︎.︎ I︎'ll h︎a︎p︎p︎i︎l︎y︎ g︎o︎ b︎a︎c︎k t︎o︎ t︎h︎e︎ d︎a︎r︎k v︎o︎i︎d︎ s︎o︎ I d︎o︎n︎'t h︎a︎v︎e︎ t︎o︎ b︎e︎ a︎r︎o︎u︎n︎d︎ i︎d︎i︎o︎t︎s︎ l︎i︎ke︎ y︎o︎u︎ a︎g︎a︎i︎n︎.︎ N︎o︎w︎ w︎o︎u︎l︎d︎ y︎o︎u︎ t︎w︎o︎ i︎d︎i︎o︎t︎s︎ ki︎n︎d︎l︎y︎ l︎e︎a︎v︎e︎ m︎y︎ v︎o︎i︎d︎?︎"

* * *

**So, does anyone else get a feeling Chara isn't as good as a translator as she thinks? Also, one of my favorite things about Undertale is the music, and one of the few things I really like about the Undertale Fandom is the remixes of said songs. I dislike the million AUs all revolving around Sans, but I do like a few AUs, like storyshift. Underfell I mostly dislike except for the idea of Flowey being good and that one Asgore boss fight uploaded on youtube. I realize this seems like I'm just rambling, but there's a point to all this. After listening to hopes and dreams for probably the millionth time, I asked myself how Jeremiah would react to being stuck as a soulless flower. So this little here omake is just that.**

**Line break **

**Omake: Your holiest teacher**

* * *

Chara's eyes fluttered open. She couldn't see anything besides the color red. She almost panicked, but realized she was laying face down on the ground. She rolled onto her back and felt a sharp pain shoot through her whole body. She bit her own lips to stop herself from screaming. _Can't let anyone think I'm weak. _Once the pain passed, she actually could focus on figuring out where she was. She could see a distant light above her. Chara blinked in confusion. _What happened?_ She asked herself. Then she noticed the rock ceiling. _Did I fall into a cave, why? _She tried to remember the answer to that question. It didn't take her long to do but she didn't like the answer. _I jumped down a hole to avoid them. Wasn't the smartest choice in hindsight, that fall could've easily killed me. Wait, why didn't I die? _She looked to her side and found her answer. She had landed on a small patch of red flowers that must've cushioned her fall. She stared at the flowers for a moment before giggling at the absurdity of it all.

She lay there giggling until she heard something, or rather someone speak. "Hello, my name's Asriel. What's yours?" Chara barely registered anything they said because she was far too focused on the fact that someone was in the room with her, and they sounded like they were extremely close to her. So in a panic, she jumped up to her feet and drew a blood stained knife out of her back pocket. "Stay away! I'm not afraid to hurt whoever you are!" The way her hand shook disagreed with her words, but she ignored them. She stood there, knife poised to strike at anything that she saw. "Woah, calm down, I'm not planning to hurt you."

Now that she was actually paying attention to the voice, she could tell it sounded like a boy about her own age. That brought her some comfort, but whatever comfort it brought her was far outweighed by the fact she couldn't see where the voice was coming from. "Where are you?" She yelled out, ignoring his claim to not hurt her. There was silence, leaving Chara with nothing but her rapidly beating heart and her own thoughts. _He sounds too young to be with them… he could just be some tribesman. No, I'm in some cave right now, I highly doubt a full tribe lives down here. Maybe he's another runaway? That wouldn't be good, he could sell me right back to them and I refuse to go back there._ The grip on her knife tightened. _Am I really willing to do this? Sure I stabbed a guard to escape, but he was an adult. This is just a kid, like me, am I really willing to just kill him? _

She thought about it for a moment, remembered how hellish her life had been back there, and decided that yes, she was willing to do anything to preserve her newfound freedom. It didn't even matter if the kid even intended to turn her in. The people after her would probably just torture the information out of the kid, or just replace her with him. So she was honestly doing the kid a favor. "Uhh… can you please not do that?" Chara was shaken out her thoughts by the kid's question. He sounded pretty afraid, which made her feel pretty bad for what she had to do. But despite knowing that talking to the kid would only make what she had to harder, she couldn't help her curiosity, (and she still needed to figure out where he was). "Do what?" Asriel was silent for a moment before speaking up. "Can you please not kill me… I'd rather not die again."

_How'd he know I was planning to… _She looked down at the knife in her hand. _Oh. Wait, what did he mean by again? _"I mean I've died already. Pretty sure I'm a ghost." Chara snorted. "Ya right, next thing you'll be telling me you can read my thoughts." Somehow, despite not being able to see Asriel, she could tell he was shrugging at her. "Actually, yes, I think I can." Asriel sounded like he was right behind her, so she whirled around on her feet and stabbed the air behind her. Which was a problem because she wanted to hit a person, not air. Chara was starting to get pissed off, and not that she was willing to admit it, but she was also starting to get afraid again. "Prove it, what color am I thinking of!" Almost as soon as she laid down her challenge, Asriel answered. "Yellow." Chara blinked before yelling. "That was just a fluke, what number am I thinking of?" Asriel sighed. "Seven hundred and forty nine."

Chara's heart beat faster and she took a step back. She was going to yell something else at Asriel, but she was interrupted by a loud popping sound. She jumped up and dropped her knife, causing her to curse. She almost immediately began to fumble around the field of red flowers she landed in for her knife. _What the hell was that, was it a gun?_ She almost immediately shook her head. _That didn't sound like a gun, it wasn't nearly loud enough. So what the he… _ "Howdy, my name's Esau, Esau the Tulip." Chara immediately looked up from the flowers she had been looking at only to see another flower… a flower that had a face… and apparently had just talked. She stared at the flower and suddenly, everything clicked. "I hit my head on the way down and I'm hallucinating." She said that aloud, even though she knew there wasn't anyone really in the room with her. She then started to laugh.

She laughed so hard, the voice in her head kept trying to interrupt her, but she ignored it. But eventually, she laughed so much she started to cry. She felt something begin to pat her own the back, causing her to pull herself together for a moment to see what it was. It was a long green vine that seemed to move on its own… that would've normally bothered her but she couldn't bring herself to care. "There, there, you haven't gone insane." Chara looked back at the talking tulip, it's two beady black eyes were looking straight at her, while it's thin black lips were in a small frown. "Well, you were screaming and yelling into empty air, so maybe you hit your head a few times on the way down." Chara stared blankly at the talking tulip. "Thanks for the confidence." She muttered out before mentally slapping herself. _Don't acknowledge the hallucinations._ The talking tulip didn't seem to detect her sarcasm and smiled. "Gee, thanks friend."

It then glanced up towards the hole that Chara had fallen down and then back down at her. "Huh, you must think you were pretty blessed to survive that fall. If those flowers weren't there, you probably would've died." It then let out a small squeaky chuckle. "It's funny how provindence works, isn't it?" Chara didn't answer, causing the talking tulip to continue. "First God saves your life, then he makes sure the two of us meet. I honestly thought God hated me, but if he brought you here…" The tulip paused for a moment and looked down at the ground. "No, no, he couldn't love me. But maybe…" The tulip looked back up, it's grin now predatory. "Maybe he hates you too!" The vine that had been tapping her back suddenly stopped and wrapped itself tightly around her neck. She let out a gasp of pain and surprise. "Are you alright?" Asreil shouted at her. She never answered, too busy trying to rip the makeshift noose wrapped around her neck. She didn't even care if any of this was real or a hallucination anymore, she just didn't want to risk dying to a friggin tulip incase this was real.

But no matter how much she struggled, it was no use. The vine was wrapped too tightly around her neck. Her world started to darken and Asriel screamed at her to keep fighting. Suddenly, the vine's grip on her vanished. She began to greedily breathe in air as soon as she got the chance. "What a horrid creature, torturing such a poor and innocent youth."

* * *

**(AN) So I hope you enjoyed the omake plus the actual chapter. I think I may do a few more omakes of Jeremiah in Asriel's place, probably just the photoshop Flowey boss fight and the final pacifist boss. Also, in case you were wondering why I named him Esau and made him a tulip, there's a reason for all that.**

**I imagine a Flowey Jeremiah to never actually abandon his beliefs even in the event of being soulless. Instead, he would think God was punishing him for something. And after he reset a few times, he would be convinced God hated him and had predestined him for hell. So let's explain his name. Esau in the Bible was the older twin brother of Jacob (who was later named Israel) who sold his birthright to Jabob/Israel for a bowl of soup. Romans 9:13 says. "As it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." I've personally seen that verse be used to support the idea of Calvinism, which brings us to why he's a tulip. **

**What's tulip? It's an acronym. It stands for Total depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of the saints. It's used to summarize the core tenants of Calvinism. What's Calvinism? I̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶c̶r̶o̶n̶y̶m̶ Essentially, Calvinsts believe that man is too evil to believe in God on their own. So God has decided since before time began to make certain people believe in him. They also believe God doesn't do this because the elect (the people saved by God) are better than anyone else, they just think God loves them. That's a very limited and poor summary of Calvinism, so please don't get your Theology lesson from a fanfic writer, please? **

**So the reason I made a reference to Tulip, is because Flowey/Jeremiah/Esau thinks he's on the other side of that coin, the unelect/vessels of wrath. So he thinks nothing he can do will save him from hell because God has predestined him to go there. Being honest, I've worried about this very thing before, so that's why I went with this approach.**

**Anyways, I hope you've enjoyed all this. Also, this story has gotten over a thousand views! Thanks to everyone who ever bothered to read this story, and special thanks to the wonderful people who have reviewed/followed/favorited this story. Please leave a review and let me know what you think. I hope you have a great day and God bless**


	10. Ecclesiastes 9:5

Jeremiah and Chara stared at the hunk of crystallized cheese sitting on top of the table. After a moment of silence, Jeremiah asked without looking up. "How?" Chara looked up from the cheese to look at Jeremiah. "How what?" Jeremiah just pointed at the cheese. "How in the world did someone get that slice of cheese inside a crystal of all things?" Before she could answer him he scowled. "Wait, let me guess. Someone used magic to do it, right?"

Chara stared at his angry face for a moment before laughing. "Nope, it's not magic, it's all-natural. That cheese has been sitting there for so long it's actually crystallized. I remember seeing it when I was still alive, it was only halfway crystallized at the time." Jeremiah's scowl was immediately replaced by a look of disgust. "Why would anyone just leave it sitting there for so long?" Chara shrugged and replied. "I don't know the minds of the sick and depraved." They both stole one last glance at the cheese before Chara tried to grab his hand and march off. She only got a few feet away before she realized that since she's a ghost, she couldn't actually just grab his hand and drag him forward. She turned around to face Jeremiah, who was wearing a small smirk. Chara let out a groan. "Come on and hurry up." Jeremiah stood there for a moment before walking forward, still wearing that stupid smirk of his.

The next room was kinda like the wishing room, but there were actual monsters in here. There was Sans standing next to a telescope and staring at Jeremiah like some creep. There was also some unknown monster mumbling something to itself about stars. Jeremiah couldn't help but shiver at the way Sans was staring at him with those two empty eyes of his. Chara, on the other hand, was right in front of Sans and yelling mere inches away from his face. "Why don't you mind your own business you creep? What are you, some kind of pervert?" Sans didn't react to anything she said, because she was a ghost and he couldn't see or hear her. He just kept staring straight at Jeremiah without saying anything. _Maybe I can just walk past him without talki…_ "Heya kid, how you doing?" Jeremiah froze mid-step. _Oh please, God save me_.

He stood there frozen, torn between his fear of skeletons and his desire to be polite. Chara was yelling at him to hurry up and leave, but he couldn't bring himself to move. After a minute or two of this, Chara decided she had enough. Chara sighed and tried to push him forward, but she just fell through him. That was enough to drag him out of his own thoughts and made him giggle. Chara let out a huff of annoyance. "I would leave now before Sans tells Papyrus your here." Normally Jeremiah would've taken Chara's advice, but something about her just falling onto the ground made him take her opinion slightly less seriously. He looked up from where Chara was laying on the ground to look at Sans. Sans was still staring at him with those two empty eye sockets of his, causing him to doubt his decision for a moment.

But he forced any doubts out of his mind and put on his best fake smile (which resembled the expression someone would make if they realized they were stuck in the middle of the desert without water, much more than it resembled a smile). "I… I'm doing good. How are you doing?" Jeremiah's performance sounded like he was doing it at gunpoint. "Well, to answer your question, I'm doing **Incredibone.**" Jeremiah just stared at Sans, wondering to himself if he should correct the skeleton's grammar, while Chara was screaming something about that not even being a good pun. When he got no visible reaction from Jeremiah, he continued. "But kid, are you sure that you're doing ok? You sound pretty miserable." Jeremiah looked over at Chara, hoping she had a way out of this. She just shrugged and shot him a look that seemed to say. "You got yourself into this mess, get yourself out." Jeremiah looked down at the ground, feeling guilty for lying and humiliated for being caught. "I… uh… you're right, I'm not doing ok. Sorry for lying to you." Jeremiah braced himself for a million different reactions, but he didn't expect Sans just to say. "It's no biggie, I figured you weren't. Anyways, I'm no therapist but I do know a shortcut or two. I can show you one right now, help you do whatever you're trying to do faster."

Jeremiah just stared blankly at Sans, unsure of how to react. Meanwhile, Chara burst into laughter. "Nice try creep, no one's dumb enough to fall for a trick like that. Right, Jeremiah?" She turned around to face Jeremiah and to her horror, he appeared to be actually considering it. "Jeremiah, you do realize this shortcut is just a shortcut into being killed by Papyrus, right?" Chara could tell he wanted to say something, but he stopped himself and let out a sigh. _Your right. _Chara couldn't help but feel relieved. He looked over at Sans. "No thanks, I can walk." Sans shrugged. "Honestly I should be the one thanking you, you saved me from having to do actual work." At that moment Jeremiah couldn't help but consider the idea that's Sans wasn't as evil as his brother only because he was too lazy to be. Regardless of his motives behind not trying to outright murder him, Jeremiah couldn't help but feel slightly thankful. Chara shot him an annoyed look. "Can you hurry up?" Jeremiah nodded at her and told Sans goodbye before walking away.

* * *

Chara had been leading him through a maze of bridges. She had wanted him to hurry up, but he couldn't help but ogle at the swamp around them. Not only that, he kept finding even more of those echo flowers. They were all recording a conversation between two Monster Kids... not to be confused with Monster Kid, the double amputee.

He was hunched over one of these echo flowers, trying to figure out where the sound came from when Chara suddenly stopped nagging at him to hurry up. That was enough to get him to look up from the flower because seriously, it's almost impossible to get her off his back without a threat to his life. When he looked up at Chara, she was using both of her hands to cover her mouth. He felt his heart skip a beat, whatever got that type of a reaction out of Chara couldn't be good for him. "What's wrong?" He asked Chara, almost afraid to hear the answer. She slowly pulled a single trembling hand away from her mouth to point behind him. Jeremiah whirled around, fully expecting to see Papyrus, or maybe something even worse... ok that was pretty unlikely but his point still stood. What he wasn't expecting to see were two see-through slug monsters.

He stared at the slimy pair, confused as to why they had frightened her so much. _(Maybe Chara's afraid of slugs?)_ He received his answer by Chara suddenly bursting into laughter. "Better watch out for those Moldsmals!" She barely managed to get her words out past her constant laughter. It took Jeremiah a moment to process what exactly had just happened, but as soon as he did he whirled around, fully planning to berate her for making him think he was about to be murdered. As he did so, Chara shouted at him to watch out. "Chara do you seriously think I'm going to fall for the same…" He found his snarky question towards Chara being replaced by a sharp pain in his soul, causing him to collapse on to the ground.

"Oh my God, are you ok? I thought you would have noticed those attacks." While Chara did sound genuinely apologetic, Jeremiah didn't notice due to the fact he was writhing on the ground screaming. Although if he had been paying attention, he would've had a lot of snarky things to say about her apology. He tried to push past the pain and get back up. He almost did it too, but right as he was starting to stand back up, about a dozen of the white pellets came barreling straight towards him, and they all impacted him at once. His whole world seemed to crack around him before shattering.

* * *

He was surrounded by darkness. He was still in massive pain, but he could tell immediately it was different than before. Where his pain used to be only affecting his soul, this new pain seemed to be afflicting his body instead. The next thing he noticed was that he felt hot and sweaty. Actually, saying he felt sweaty was an understatement, he felt soaked.

Fortunately, he wasn't left in the darkness for long because his eyes soon shot open. Unfortunately, immediately after his eyes opened the screaming and shaking started. At first, he had no idea where the screaming was coming from or why the room was shaking, but he soon realized the answer to both. The screaming was coming from him, even though the voice didn't belong to him, and the shaking was because he was violently thrashing about the bed.

Even though it was hard to see where he was at due to the way he was thrashing about the bed, he was still able to see enough to recognize where he was at. He was back in that grey and white room.

He was worried that it would last forever, but it didn't, actually, it only lasted a few seconds. It was all driven away by the most wonderful warmth he ever felt. The warmth was gentle, yet it still overcame the horrible heat that had been tormenting him. Although it did nothing to help the sticky sweat practically clinging onto him. He found his head turning to face the source of the warmth. He was expecting to see an angel, or maybe even Jesus, but instead all he saw was… a crying Toriel? Jeremiah knew this should've disappointed him in comparison to what he expected, but the sight of her filled him with such love and adoration that it was almost like looking upon the gates of heaven. "Please my Child, don't give up." Toriel sounded so… broken, he couldn't help but feel that way himself. She gripped his hand tightly and he tried his best to do the same with his limp hand.

He wanted to keep looking at her, but the sound of the door creaking open forced him to look over. In the now open doorway, he could see two blurred figures. The larger one that he's already seen before, and a much smaller one wearing a green and yellow striped shirt. They both made their way to the bed, slowly and hesitantly at first. But after only a few steps, the shorter one burst into a sprint and practically launched himself into his side. He winced slightly at the pain but ignored it. They hugged Jeremiah as if he would disappear if they let go and cried into his side. Jeremiah just smiled and slowly started to pet his best friend's (_best friend?) _fur. He wanted to tell them a million different things, like how he agreed this was a bad plan or how much he loved them, but all that came out were pathetic whimpers. So left without a voice. he just enjoyed his friend's presence until he felt the world around him shift back to its proper order.

* * *

Jeremiah opened his eyes, he was back in waterfall, he looked ahead and realized he was right by where he found the crystallized cheese. "Are... are you ok?" Jeremiah looked up at Chara, she wasn't crying or anything but he could tell she was upset... well ok, that's mostly due to them being able to feel the other's emotions, (which now that he's thinking about it, is pretty weird. But he supposed it wasn't that weird in comparison to seeing ghosts.) but he could also tell by how instead of her usual smile, her mouth was pulled down slightly. He shrugged. "I'm doing ok, it was just a vision after all." Chara hesitated for a moment."Are you sure about that, it felt pretty real?"

Jeremiah knew exactly what she meant by it all feeling too real, he could still remember how it felt to die. But that second vision, the one in the grey room, felt real as well but was obviously just a vision. Besides, he didn't even want to consider the possibility that he somehow died and came back to life by sailing through time, because it sounded absolutely absurd. Not only that, the implications were terrifying to him. Could he even control this ability, or would he be doomed to constantly sail through time, never dying and reaching heaven? He would've rather never be born then for that to be true. "I'm certain." Was all he said in reply.

Chara brooded in thought for a moment before seemingly cheering up. "Well then, we should probably leave now. I think we need to be faster this go around, give those friggin Moldsmals less time to find us again." Jeremiah didn't really appreciate the way she was talking as if this all happened before, but she made a good enough point. But before he started to run down the halls like an idiot, he came up with an even better idea.

* * *

He walked up to Sans despite Chara's protests. Sans waved at him. "Nice to see you again so soon." Jeremiah was slightly surprised by Sans saying something different than in the vision, but then again, Flowey didn't show up after his first vision. For half a moment he wondered if he wasn't actually having visions of the future and was just insane, but he shrugged it off, he wouldn't waste time constantly worrying about that. "Hey Sans, could you show me one of your shortcuts?" Sans seemed to be surprised by his question but settled himself down fast enough. "How'd you even know about those? I never told you about them." Jeremiah's heart skipped a beat, he really hadn't thought about Sans asking him this. But before he could even attempt to come up with an excuse, Sans laughed. "Ehh it doesn't matter, as long as your not some sort of time traveler. Follow me." Sans started to walk away and back to the room with the cheese in it. Jeremiah and Chara both shook themselves out of their stupor to follow him, Chara far more reluctantly than Jeremiah.

Jeremiah blinked as he walked into the room with the cheese in it. For the split second his eyes were closed he felt the world around him shift. When he opened his eyes he was in a completely different room. "Wh... what just what happened?" Jeremiah asked. He waited for Sans or Chara to answer, but nobody did. He slowly turned his head all around the room looking for any sign of either of them, but he saw no one. "Chara..." Almost as soon as he said her name he heard her screaming in the distance. For a split second, he almost forgot she was a ghost and thought she may be in danger, but once he remembered that he felt some relief. But that relief shattered with a sudden worry that magic could possibly hurt her. He was about to charge forward, fully intending on rescuing her from whatever savage was attacking her, when he realized the screaming was getting closer, fast. He was surprised to see Chara flying straight towards him as if she was tied to a chain and someone had just yanked it hard. Chara slowed herself down just in time to avoid hitting him.

Chara floated in midair for a second, still looking pretty shaken, but she eventually calmed down and floated to the ground. Jeremiah looked at her, still in complete and utter shock. "What just happened?" Chara looked at him, seeming pretty annoyed. "How am I supposed to know? You and Sans just disappeared and I was sent flying here like a slingshot." Jeremiah was taken aback by Chara's answer. _How did Sans and me just disappear like that, was it magic? _He hoped it wasn't magic, but that seemed like the most likely explanation. _I'll just have to ask him if I see him later. _Jeremiah sighed and focused on the task at hand. "I'm sorry. Do you at least have any idea where here is?" Chara did a quick once over of the room. "Wow. He really didn't take you that far ahead. I would say your a room or two ahead of that maze you... that you..." Jeremiah let out a frustrated groan and interrupted her. "That I had a vision of dying in?" Chara sighed and said. "Yes, what you said."

They both became silent for a minute before Chara gave him a fake smile and pointed behind him. "There's some more of those history plaques behind you." Jeremiah turned around and true to her word, there were two more plaques. He still had a million questions about what had happened with Sans, but he also had a million questions about the monsters and there was an actual possibility of some answers behind him. So he pushed his questions about Sans out of his mind and started to read the plaques.

After spending several minutes studying the plaques, he was interrupted by someone shouting at him. "Hey, punk! Are you that monster that kinda looks like a human Papyrus told me about?" Jeremiah and Chara both whirled around, standing there was the puppet captain Uyndyne. Jeremiah stood there, frozen as she approached, despite Chara yelling at him to run away. Uyndyne placed one of her gauntleted hands on his shoulder. He couldn't see her eyes underneath her helmet, but he could tell she was staring straight at him. "Heh, I can see what he meant by saying you kinda looked like a human. Good thing I watched all those human history documentaries with Alphys, they taught me humans with your type of hair and eye color are supposed to have cat ears. Since you obviously don't have those, you must be some weird type of monster." Jeremiah and Chara both had no idea what Uyndyne was on about. "Wait, do people have cat ears nowadays Jeremiah?" Jeremiah glanced over at Chara and shook his head. Thankfully Undyne didn't notice.

Uyndyne then let out a peal of laughter. "Which is a good thing, because if you were a human, that would mean I'd have to beat you up and take your soul." Uyndyne then took her gauntleted hand off his shoulder and started to walk away. Chara let out a sigh of relief while Jeremiah visibly deflated. "I guess Uyndyne really isn't the paragon of justice Monster kid made her out to be if she's just gonna let Papyrus kill me." Chara was silent for a moment before shaking her head. "No, don't you see what she was doing?" Jeremiah shook his head. "She obviously knew you're a human, she was just pretending not to notice so she wouldn't have to hurt you." Jeremiah's eyes widened. He hadn't considered that possibility, now he felt guilty for implying she wasn't a true hero. "It's ok Jeremiah, she's such a hero she probably doesn't care about getting credit."

* * *

He walked down the hallway, only stopping to look at a rather sad looking statue. Chara only stole a single glance at it before looking away. The statue was of a horned child looking down at the ground. The water that rained down on the statue almost gave Jeremiah the impression that the statue was crying. While Jeremiah found it mildly sad, for whatever reason it seemed to affect Chara a whole lot more. "Can we please leave?" Chara's voice was weak and sounded strained. Jeremiah did as she asked, wondering to himself why Chara was making such a big deal out of a statue. As he walked into the next room, it suddenly clicked for Jeremiah, and he couldn't help but feel like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. _That statue kinda looks like Toriel, and Chara was friends with Toriel's child, the statue probably reminded her of them._ He didn't know what to do with that information, he didn't think she would appreciate him being upfront about it. "It's all in the past now Jeremiah, don't worry about it." Jeremiah jumped slightly when she spoke up from right behind him. He really needed to remember she could hear his thoughts. He looked back at her and almost immediately decided she didn't look or sound ok.

Chara just let out a growl and said. "It's not your problem if I'm ok or not, just hurry up before you get killed by a Whimsum or something." With that said, she let out a humph and started to make her forwards. After moving about ten feet away from him she suddenly stopped, as if she was chained to him and couldn't move any further. "Uhh, can you please move forward a little bit." Jeremiah just sighed and started to walk forward. But he only moved a few feet forward before stopping. Chara let out a groan and turned around. "What's the holdup now?" He just pointed at the can of strange sticks covered in some sort of multicolored cloth. Chara just looked completely and utterly bewildered, so he sighed and asked. "What are these?" Chara just looked at him as if he was stupid until a look of sudden understanding crossed her face. "Of course you wouldn't know what those are, you live in a desert. Ok, so those are called umbrellas, there made to block out the rain." Jeremiah raised an eyebrow and took the purple colored one out of the can. He examined it, but as far as he could tell there wasn't any way for this umbrella to actually block any rain. Chara just laughed. "That's because it's not open. You're supposed to open it like this." She did a weird pulling motion with her two hands. Jeremiah imitated the motion and to his surprise, the cloth popped open and stretched out. He did the same motion in reverse, causing it to fold back in on itself.

He replicated this process a few times, making sure to watch what exactly caused it to expand. "So this stops the rain from hitting you?" Chara nodded. "Yep, sunlight too." Jeremiah studied the umbrella one last time before coming up with an idea. Wordlessly, he made his way back to the other room. Chara tried protesting this, asking him why he was going the wrong way. But he ignored her and made his way to the statute. He then firmly placed the umbrella in the statue's hand and smiled when it stopped crying. He was surprised when a clicking sound came from within the statue that was followed by a sweet melody. Jeremiah stared at the statue in wonder, while Chara seemed to be transfixed by the music.

Jeremiah wanted to ask Chara how a statue could play music like this, but even he could tell she was in another world at the moment, reliving some ancient memory from long before he was ever born. At that moment something finally occurred to Jeremiah, Chara was dead. Oh sure, he knew that for a while now, but there is a really big difference between knowing something and understanding it. She had once been alive, able to touch, taste, be seen by somebody other than him. She had people she loved and cared about, (A memory of him accusing Toriel echoed through his mind) people he had accused of murder.

As the rain pattered against the umbrella, he felt tempted to hold Chara's hand and apologize, not only for the way he treated Toriel but also for the fact she was stuck down here with him and not her friend. "I already told you not to apologize, it's not your fault." Jeremiah looked away from the statue and looked at Chara. She was still staring intently at the statue. She let out a sigh. "It's all my fault after all." She became silent again after that.

They both stood there, trapped in their own thoughts as the melody echoed throughout the caves.

* * *

**(AN) So I got this chapter done fairly quickly, thank God. I suppose that's mainly thanks to me focusing on writing and wasting less time playing video games. I had plans for there to be a scene where Chara accidentally possessed Jeremiah, but I didn't like it so it was cut. Also, I've been thinking about trying to learn the piano, it would be another productive thing to learn. Another reason is because I want to mess around with garage band and make a few songs. I feel that learning piano can give me a better understanding of music theory, this helping me make music off garage band.**

**So with that all done, thanks to everyone who's, followed, favorited or reviewed this story, y'all the best. Also, I was thinking about doing one of those character Q and A things. If any of you are interested in this idea, just leave a question for literally any character in the story, in the review section, or just PM me. (Yes, being honest, this is me fishing for reviews.) **

**God bless and I hope y'all have a wonderful day!**


	11. Exodus 4:11

Time seemed to melt as they listened to the music. Neither of them knew how long they had been standing there, listening to the music as past memories bubbled up to the surface of their minds. Had it been seconds, minutes, hours? They didn't know and didn't particularly care. Jeremiah knew they couldn't stay like this forever, they had to keep moving forward. Why did they have to keep moving forward? Honestly, Jeremiah wasn't completely sure. He knew he had to avoid Papyrus and Flowey, but he had no idea what his end goal was here. Was it to escape? No, Chara claimed there was a spell trapping the monsters underground. So if they couldn't escape, why would the spell let him? Was his goal to convert these savages? He certainly wanted to convert them, but most of them seemed rather hostile to him. _Well, one of them had been friendly to me, and look at how I messed that up._ _She could end up burning in hell because of me._ That thought filled him with despair. It would be entirely his own fault, wouldn't it? God had practically gift-wrapped the opportunity for him to save her, and he blew it because he was too paranoid! His despair quickly morphed into anger at himself. _I'm a craven fool who accused a kind old lady who saved my life of murder! How am I going to save these savages if I couldn't even save her? _He was just about to slap the side of his head when he suddenly remembered what God told Moses in the cave. "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak."

He was stunned by the simplicity of it, and also felt ashamed for not trusting in God to guide him. Of course, he couldn't save anyone on his own, the only one who can save is Christ alone. He was little more than a humble messenger. So he would keep pressing onwards and trust that God would lead him to wherever he was needed. So feeling humbled yet strangely joyful, he bowed his head and prayed. "Oh please Lord forgive me my pride and cowardice. I thank you, Lord, for being patient with me. I ask that you protect and guide me through these savage lands." Jeremiah hesitated for a moment before sighing. "I know I messed it up, but please give me another chance to save Toriel, my Lord." He was about to say amen, but all this talk about Toriel's salvation made him wonder if her child had been saved. _Chara looks like she's my own age, and I figure it's safe to assume they were both around the same age. So even if he never heard the good news of Christ, he was still only a child. I highly doubt God would condemn a child to hell if he never even got a chance to hear the gospel._ He knew that should've relieved his worries, but he still felt perturbed at the idea of Chara's friend burning in hell. He let out a sigh as he came to the conclusion that since her friend was dead, the only thing he could for them was to pray and ask God to have mercy on them, so he did. "Please God, I ask that Chara, her friend, and I, can all meet one day in your heavenly kingdom. Amen." As soon as he finished. he turned around to tell Chara it was time to leave. But instead of her still staring at the statue, trapped in the past, she was staring right at him.

Jeremiah couldn't help but feel awkward. "How much of that did you hear?" Almost as soon as he asked the question, Chara jolted slightly. She couldn't help but feel awkward herself for getting caught eavesdropping. Then again, did it really count as eavesdropping if she had no choice but to listen? She hesitated for a moment, before admitting. "I kinda heard everything." Even Jeremiah could notice the way she cringed as she admitted it. They both stood there awkwardly for a moment until Chara seemed to compose herself. "If it makes you feel any better, I suppose I can see why you didn't trust Toriel. You just fell down a mountain and nearly got murdered by a talking flower, I can't blame you for being distrusting. Honestly, now that I think about it, from your point of view Toriel's home must've felt like a real Hansel and Gretal type situation." Jeremiah didn't know who Hansel and Gretal were, but he understood what Chara was trying to do. She was trying to help him feel better out of pity. Pity that he didn't want, need or deserve. Jeremiah let out a sigh and started to rub his temples. "Chara, I accused Toriel of murdering children without any evidence, after she saved my life. Please explain to me how that isn't wrong?" Chara just smiled and shrugged. "Oh, what you did was stupid and wrong." Jeremiah stared at her, completely shocked by her sudden shift in attitude. Ignoring his shock, she continued. "Just because something's wrong, doesn't mean you can't understand why someone does it. Besides, Toriel has probably gotten over what you said by now."

Jeremiah thought about everything she said. Chara had made a decent enough point, he hadn't been completely unjustified in distrusting Toriel. But that still didn't make it right to do so. Before he could dwell on it for too long, Chara spoke up again. "Also, I do have a plan that at the very least should stop Papyrus from murdering you." Jeremiah looked at her disbelievingly. "How do you plan on doing that?" Chara's lips slowly curled into a smug grin. "It's simple. There's no way the king knows about this human murdering business. Papyrus is probably taking advantage of Da… King Asgore's naivety and is doing all of this behind his back. So all you have to do is get to his castle and explain everything to him. Then he'll lock those perfidious skeletons in prison and probably adopt you or something." Jeremiah's eyes widened. "Adopt?" Chara just shrugged again. "Ya, probably." She quickly noticed his stunned expression and hastily added. "I know you may want to go home, but that's not really an option. But I can personally guarantee you'll be.." Jeremiah interrupted her before she could finish. "That would be amazing! Being adopted by the king would give me the perfect chance to convert him! If he converts, the whole kingdom will probably follow suit! Praise God!" He then started to run away excitedly, all of his worries being left behind. Chara just stared at him completely and utterly stunned, until an unseen force started to drag her behind him.

* * *

Jeremiah and Chara walked down the extremely confusing bridge almost side by side. The bridge in question was so confusing on account of its many paths that seemingly led to nowhere. Normally Jeremiah would be ranting to Chara about how stupid the bridge's design was, (Chara would've actually agreed with him on that) but he was far too busy signing to do so. "Jesus loves me, loves me still. Though I'm very weak and ill. From his shining throne on high. Comes to watch me where I lie. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so."

Chara sighed as Jeremiah sang his little heart out. They had been walking for about an hour now with almost nothing interesting happening. There had been that small cliff that took Jeremiah half an hour to climb over. That had been pretty funny at first, but after a while, it just got sad and boring. So when Jeremiah asked her if she minded if he sang, she told him to knock himself out. She had honestly been hoping for him to be a horrible singer, that way she could tease him about it. But no, he just had to be a fairly decent singer who only sang one song… on repeat… for what Chara assumes to be at least a million times. Jeremiah suddenly stopped signing and Chara's heart rejoiced. But then she heard him taking in a deep gulp of air followed by him saying the words, "Jesus loves me." Chara felt her heart sink all the way to the bottom of the core.

But her despair was quickly replaced by a new emotion, rage, burning rage. She was just about to demand him (very loudly) to sing literally anything else when a loud crashing noise came from right behind Jeremiah. Unfortunately, the sudden noise startled Jeremiah, causing him to jump up in surprise. Normally, this wouldn't be that big a deal, but he was unfortunately standing a little bit too close to the ledge, so he accidentally jumped right off the bridge. Chara stared at where he had just been standing in complete and utter shock. Before she had time to process this, the unseen force that tethered her to him began to pull her off the bridge with him. So she got the pleasure of falling right beside him as he screamed all the way into the dark abyss.

* * *

Undyne surveyed the bridge below her from atop a rocky perch. There were no signs of movement besides the occasional ripple of water in the lake underneath the bridge. "Oh Angel, this is boring," Undyne muttered angrily to herself. She had already patrolled the entirety of Waterfall twice today, but her shift didn't end for another two hours. She honestly had nothing to do, which had been a problem happening more and more lately. If she had known being in the royal guard would be this boring she would've… probably still have joined the royal guard in all honesty. Well, she still has to go to Hotland, find the canine unit and order them to go back to Snowdin, (there's going to be hell to pay whenever she finds out who sent them a fake order to go to Hotland), but Hotland sucks and she can't be bothered going there. _Besides, if a human comes through Snowdin, Papyrus will call me and I can deal with it._

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something moving. She stared at it for a moment and took notice of the way it walked on two feet. She couldn't see much more than that, because they were too far away to make out any more detail. So she waited until the figure got closer, and as they drew closer the more and more she reached the conclusion that it had to be a human. Undyne couldn't help but grin ferally as she summoned a blue spear. She was about to fling the spear at the unexpecting human when she realized it wasn't a human at all, it was just that strange monster that looked almost exactly like a human. They were walking along happily, singing a song about how someone named Jesus loved them because someone else called the Bible told him so. Uyndyne had no idea who these two people were, but was happy for the kid regardless. She also couldn't help but wonder what sort of monster this child was, even though he looked nothing like them, his personality made her suspect he was some sort of Whimsum.

Before she could do much thinking on what sort of monster the child was, she remembered the fact she had just been planning on skewering said child. So with a sigh, she dissolved her spear. _That was a close one. It's a really good thing Alphys showed me those human history documentaries, or else I could've seriously hurt this kid. That kid must have it really tough looking like that, bet he gets attacked by other monsters all the time. _As soon as she thought about that, an idea popped into her head. _Wait, I can totally just follow this kid around and beat up anyone who attacks them. That would be doing way more good than just patrolling Waterfall for the millionth time! _With her mind made up, she leaped from her rocky perch onto the bridge below with a grin. She landed right behind the child with a loud crashing noise. The child let out a scream in surprise… then in a panic… accidentally fell off the bridge.

Uydyne just stared at where he had been standing just moments before in surprise. After a moment she composed herself. _I'm really lucky falls can't hurt monsters. _She really was lucky, she was pretty sure a human couldn't survive the jump she had just done, and a human probably couldn't survive the fall that kid had just taken. Still, she probably should head down to where the kid fell and apologize for scaring them. Besides, she still had to protect them. She was about to jump down after them but stopped herself when she realized she could accidentally crush the child. She sighed as she realized she would have to take the long way down.

* * *

Pain and a sense of regret were the first things Jeremiah felt when he woke up. He lay on the ground for a few minutes with his eyes closed, he was far too afraid to open them and see the damage. "That was stupid." Chara groaned out. He tried to agree with her but found himself unable to move his lips. _That can't be good. Chara, please tell me how bad is it? _Instead of acknowledging him, Chara let out a pained wheeze and said. "I knew I should've just used the knife ins…"

Chara was suddenly interrupted by someone speaking. "It sounds like it came from over here." The person speaking somehow felt familiar and comforting to Jeremiah. He tried to call out to them for help, but he still couldn't speak. "If I'm quiet, maybe whoever that is will leave me alone and just let me die." Jeremiah was shocked, to say the least. "_Why would you want to die, aren't you already dead?" _Chara ignored his question yet again. Seeing that she was being far too weird and moody to be any help, Jeremiah tried to pick himself off the ground. But he couldn't even move his body. Fortunately, that proved to be unnecessary because the stranger seemed to notice him. "Oh! You've fallen down, haven't you? Are you ok?"

Silence was the only answer the kind stranger received. After a moment of silence, he felt someone grab his limp arm. "Here, get up." Chara let out a small sigh and his body started to pick itself back up without him even thinking of doing so. His body felt heavy and wobbly, like a large stack of books, but the kind stranger kept him from falling back onto the ground. He wrapped his arm around the stranger's shoulders like they were a lifeline. After a few silent minutes spent walking like this, Chara spoke up. "My name's Chara." It took Jeremiah a moment to realize it was his lips that were moving each time Chara spoke. When he realized that, everything seemed to suddenly click for Jeremiah. This wasn't real… well, it was real, but it was just a memory. A memory that he was now certain belonged to Chara. He couldn't help but feel like he was violating something sacred by being here, hearing all of this. "Chara, huh? That's a nice name." Suddenly, the darkness surrounding him was replaced by light. "My name is…"

* * *

Jeremiah's eyes slowly fluttered open. He was surrounded by tall yellow flowers, much like the ones he saw when he first fell. And to his surprise, he wasn't in any real pain. Oh sure, his whole body was aching and he really didn't want to stand back up yet. But he wouldn't complain about any of that after falling off a bloody bridge and surviving. Maybe getting attacked all the time by magical savages was starting to toughen him up a little. As much as he would've loved to just lay down in his little spot, he knew he couldn't do that forever. So he forced himself to slowly pick himself off the ground. Thanks to what he could only assume to be a blessing from God, he felt very little pain as he did so. "Oh thank God you're alright. I was honestly worried that you died." Chara actually did sound extremely relieved, and once he was standing on his two feet again he could see said relief written on her face. He couldn't help but smile, it was nice to know someone down here cared about him. Chara smiled as well. "Like imagine how horrible that would be. I would be stuck here and forced to watch your body slowly rot, that would be boring." Jeremiah's smile dropped and an annoyed look took its place. "Gee, thanks for the concern." Chara, still smiling brightly, told him it was no problem.

Jeremiah stood there for a moment before looking up. He couldn't even see where he had fallen from. "Chara, what happened? All I remember is hearing a loud crashing noise and then falling." Jeremiah had wanted to mention the memory he had seen as well, but he figured it wouldn't be for the best. Chara shrugged. "Being honest, I'm not sure. I didn't see what caused that noise, but whatever it was, it frightened you enough to make you lose balance." Jeremiah blushed. "Is that seriously how l fell?" Chara nodded happily before pointing at his shirt. "You kinda got that whole outfit covered in mud too." Jeremiah looked down, and true to her word, his whole outfit was caked in mud. He let out a groan, causing Chara to laugh. "Don't worry about it, this room is filled with water so it shouldn't be hard to clean it." He didn't realize it until she mentioned it, but the room around them was filled up with water. There was even a small waterfall to their left. He couldn't help but feel stupid for not noticing it all sooner. "Then again, we're in the dumps, so the water here probably isn't that clean… just don't drink any of it."

Jeremiah nodded, even though he was no longer paying attention. Because as she spoke, he noticed something else in the room. He couldn't believe what he was seeing at first, but the longer he looked at it, the more certain he became. His eyes lit up like saucers as he asked Chara in amazement. "Who owns all that?" Chara turned around to see what he was talking about, but all she saw were piles of garbage. Eventually, she gave up on finding it on her own. "What are you talking about?" Jeremiah pointed at one of the trash piles. She just stared at him. "That's just garbage man." He stared at her wide-eyed. "Garage! That has to be worth a small fortune!" Chara looked at him skeptically. "Really? I understand that the surface is basically Road Warrior, but shouldn't there be all kinds of scrap up there?" Jeremiah had no idea what this "Road warrior," was, but he understood her question. "No, most of the ruins and scrap up there have been completely picked clean." Chara's skepticism seemed to fade and was slowly replaced by thoughtfulness. "Huh, I guess that makes sense. Nukes would've blown up the big cities like Phoenix, and it's been a couple of hundred years since those bombs fell."

As she spoke, he walked off the flower patch and started to wade through the water. The water just barely went past his knees so he wasn't afraid of it. Although the way the mud seemed to swallow his feet with every step he took disgusted him slightly. As he walked through the murky waters, he tried to wipe the mud off his shirt. But doing that only seemed to make the mess worse, so he left it alone for now.

He eventually made his way to one of the scrap piles and started to excitedly sift through it all. He was personally hoping to find one of those ancient typewriters, they could really use one of those back at the monastery. Sadly, he never found one, but he wouldn't complain about the things he did find. He found at least a dozen of these little glass rectangles that Chara couldn't identify, her best guess was that they were made after she fell. Most of them were cracked in some way, but he figured at least Father Greene would appreciate the novelty of owning something pre-war. He also found about three different books, but they were far too wet to actually be readable. Finally, he found a larger glass rectangle that had these strange buttons and sticks on the side. On the back of the rectangle were the words, "Nintendo switch." Chara quickly identified Nintendo as an ancient video game company.

He glanced up from the switch to look at Chara. "What's a video game?" Chara let out a groan. "It's… uh, it's like a game that you play on a machine." Jeremiah raised an eyebrow. "What sort of game? Like a card game? Horseshoe? Bible trivia?" Chara shook her head. "No, it's not like that. It's really hard to describe, why don't you just see if you can turn it on?" Jeremiah looked back down at the game machine. "How would I do that?" Chara didn't say anything, instead, she leaned down to look at the machine as well. After a moment she pointed at a tiny button at the very top of the machine. "Press this button." He did so and to his shock, the words, "Nintendo switch," appeared on the screen in white. In his surprise, he almost dropped the machine but he managed to stop himself.

After a moment the screen shifted to say, "Press A to continue." He looked at the buttons and pressed the one labeled A. The screen shifted yet again to show a white screen with multiple boxes that were labeled with different names. Before he could do anything a little message popped up saying, "Warning, battery at three percent." Chara let out another groan. "Well, that's just great. You probably only have a few minutes to try out a game." Jeremiah didn't share in her annoyance, he was far too happy and excited to have an actual, working, piece of the old world in his hands. "So are these boxes the games?" Chara shrugged. "Pretty sure, I've never even heard of a switch before but I do know Mario is a good game." She pointed at the first of the boxes that was labeled, "Super Mario Bros."

"I'd recommend you play Mario, I don't know about any of these other games but I know Mario is pretty simple. You just jump and kill mushroom people." Jeremiah was about to ask Chara why anyone would even play that, but another box caught his attention. It was a black box simply labeled "Deltarune," in white letters.

Something about the game seemed to draw him in, and before he knew it he clicked on the box. "Hey, you clicked on the wrong…" Chara was interrupted by Jeremiah hushing her once the music started to play. He stared at the screen in amazement as it displayed some of the most beautiful art he had ever seen, alongside a tale of three prophesied hero's coming to save the world from destruction. Once it finished, he was brought to a blue screen with three boxes labeled save files. He looked up at Chara and asked her in a panic. "What's wrong, how do I get back to the game?" Chara stared at him for a moment before laughing. "You're in the game, doofus. That thing you just watched was the intro. These save files are here so you can save your progress in the game so you don't have to start all the way from the beginning." Jeremiah blinked and tried to process the information. After a moment he thought he understood. "These… save files, are they like bookmarks?" Chara nodded. "Yep." Jeremiah smiled. "Thanks," Chara told him not to mention it. He looked back down at the game, filled with excitement at the idea of embarking on an epic quest. But when he looked back down, the screen was black. Chara snorted. "Looks like it ran out of battery."

Jeremiah stared at the blank screen in shock. He tried to press the button that turned it on in the first place but nothing happened. He tried to turn the machine on again, but nothing happened. He kept trying to turn it on until he eventually realized it was no use. So with a sigh, he put all the ancient artifacts he found in his knapsack. He went back to wading through the water, with his head downcast. Noticing his gloomy mood, Chara tried to cheer him up. "Hey don't worry, there should be a charger somewhere down here." This didn't seem to help his mood at all so she continued. "Besides, that game was definitely made by some sort of monster so it probably wasn't even pre-war." Jeremiah was silent for a moment before asking underneath his breath. "What makes you say that?" Chara couldn't help but smirk at the fact he was talking again. "Well it's simple, even back when I was alive the monster war was little more than a local rumor. Yet whoever made that game somehow knew about monsters. Not only that, they somehow knew about the Deltarune and exactly what it looks like. Come on, I think we can both agree that's extremely unlikely."

Jeremiah thought about what she said and had to admit it made lots of sense. Yet despite the fact this Deltarune game probably wasn't some ancient game, he couldn't help but feel a longing deep in his heart to see that story unfurl. But now, he would never get to see it. Chara let out a groan. "I already told you, we can find a charger for it and you can play it later." Jeremiah immediately brightened. "Really?" He asked her excitedly. "Ya, sure." She paused for a second before asking. "Why do you even want to play that game? Shouldn't all that talk about banishing angels and heaven bother you?"

Jeremiah didn't bother facing her as he replied. "That angel was obviously supposed to represent Satan. The Bible does describe him as an angel of light after all. Also, the heaven that the game mentioned was supposed to belong to the angel, who I just told you was Satan. So his heaven is obviously a false one. It's pretty interesting that there are three heroes, because…" Chara started to tune him out. She would've normally told him to just shut up, but he was far too excited and she didn't quite have the heart to ruin that. The way he was prattling on kinda reminded her of whenever Asriel would tell her about one of his OC's. _**Asriel**_. Just the thought of his name was enough to fill her with regret.

As she watched the way he rambled on excitedly, occasionally stopping to shift through some garbage as if it were a treasure chest, she couldn't help but see some resemblance in their personalities. The pair of them were awful scaredy-cats, they could both be pretty stubborn, and both of them were complete and utter dorks. For half a moment, she couldn't help but worry that she was only helping him out of some sort of weird guilt about Asriel. But she quickly wrote that off. Even though the two were slightly similar, they were also pretty different. Heck, now that she put a little bit more thought into it, even their similarities were really only surface level. For as much as she loved Asriel, he was more spoiled than actually stubborn. She remembered all the times he demanded her to play one of his games, even when she was sick or in one of her moods. She also couldn't really picture Jeremiah drawing something or writing fanfiction like Asriel did. But regardless of similar or dissimilar they were, she would make sure he didn't end up like Asriel. As she reached her conclusion, she was filled with **Determination** to protect Jeremiah.

* * *

"So that's why I'm excited to play that game!" Jeremiah waited a moment to see what Chara had to say, but she never said anything. He looked up at her and noticed she was just blankly staring at him. His face turned as red as both of their eyes. _How long has she been staring at me like that? Wait, why is she even staring at me like that, is there something on my face?_ He was about to ask her that question, but the sound of someone screaming in anger stopped him. "Was that Papyrus?" Chara asked him in a panic, suddenly losing interest in his face. "No, I'm not Papyrus! I'm a ghost that lives inside a dummy!" Jeremiah whirled around and saw a floating dummy. Normally such a sight would've stunned Jeremiah, but after everything that's he seen recently it wasn't that impressive. But the fact this dummy could apparently hear Chara did stun him. "Of course he could hear me you dummy, he just said he's a ghost." Before Jeremiah could even reply the dummy let out another angry scream. "How dare you compare me to that incompetent idiot? He somehow got knocked out before even meeting my cousin! My cousin was so excited to see a human, but this fool was too busy being knocked out to even acknowledge my cousin!"

Before the dummy could continue his rant, Chara interrupted him. "When was this? When he got knocked out in the ruins or when he nearly drowned to death towards the beginning of Waterfall?" The dummy's anger seemed to vanish for a moment. "Oh, that was back in the ruins." But the anger quickly returned with a vengeance. "My cousin was possessing a dummy too! He was so disappointed about not getting to meet the human, he stopped possessing his dummy!" Jeremiah blinked and asked. "Wouldn't that be a good thing? I mean, I imagine your cousin wants to go to heaven." The dummy and Chara both stared at him. "They are not that type of ghost." Jeremiah blinked in confusion. He was about to ask how there could be more than one type of ghost, but the dummy interrupted him before he could. "Ya, what are you, racist?" Before Jeremiah could try and explain that he wasn't racist, the dummy let out yet another scream. "You know what you racist incompetent idiot? I'll… uh… disappoint the soul right out of your body!"

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, about half a dozen smaller dummy's appeared right above the mad dummy. "Foolish! Foolish! Foolish!" The mini dummy's started to shoot white pellets at Jeremiah. "Quick Jeremiah, dodge! Jeremiah didn't need to be told by Chara to dodge, but he appreciated the fact she did. He barely managed to sidestep the pellets. _At least I'm getting better at this dodging thing._ "Jeremiah, watch out, there's more behind you!" Jeremiah whirled around and saw even more white pellets hurtling towards him. Jeremiah dropped down to the ground, accidentally swallowing some water as he did so. Thankfully the pellets just sailed right on over his head and went straight towards the dummy. "Oww, you dummies! Watch where you're aiming your magic attacks!" The dummy paused to stare at Jeremiah as he picked himself back off the ground. "Hey! Forget I said anything about magic!" "_Wait, why is he making such a big deal about magic attacks?" _Chara let out a sigh. "It's because magic attacks are the only thing that can hurt him, since, you know, he's a ghost." The mad dummy yelled out to Chara. "Hey, which side are you on?" Chara just ignored him and told Jeremiah. "When you dodge his attacks, try to do so in a way that they'll hit him instead." "_How am I supposed to do that?"_ Chara was about to shrug and tell him she had no idea, but she was interrupted by the sound of a woman screaming in anger.

All three of them looked at each other, hoping one of the others had an explanation. Fortunately, their unspoken question was answered when a screaming armored figure came charging from right behind Jeremiah. They ran straight to the dummy and suplexed him, causing him to be sent flying away, screaming in rage and pain all the way. "That's what you get for hurting a kid!" The armored figure shouted at the dummy as it quickly vanished from sight. As the figure turned around, Jeremiah quickly realized it was Uydyne. Jeremiah stood there frozen, unsure of how to react. She had just helped him out, but she was working with Papyrus. Uyndyne stared at him for a moment before taking off her helmet. Jeremiah was surprised by the fact her appearance didn't surprise him too much. While her sharp teeth did scare him slightly, her eyepatch filled him with enough pity to distract him from his fear. He also couldn't help but admire the aesthetic appeal of her blue scales that were contrasted with her red hair.

Uyndyne started to rub the back of her head and she tried to avoid eye-contact with him. "Sorry for scaring you off the bridge." Jeremiah and Chara both blinked in surprise. "That was you?" They both asked in unison. Uyndyne shifted her feet awkwardly. "Ya, that was me. I didn't mean to scare you like that though, I just wanted to try protecting you." Jeremiah's mind came up with a million different snarky responses to that. But he resisted his desire to be snarky with a gentle reminder to himself that she had just saved him from the dummy, besides it wasn't like the fall had hurt him at all. Chara, on the other hand, couldn't stop herself. "Gee, you're doing a great job of that so far, aren't you lady?" Jeremiah looked at Chara through the corner of his eye, doing his best to not look insane as he did so. "_Give her a break, she's risking her life by helping me." _Chara looked confused for a moment until a look of sudden understanding took its place. "Papyrus." She gasped out in fear. Jeremiah nodded sagely. "_We both saw Papyrus ordering her to kill me. If he finds out she's ignoring his orders, Lord knows what he'll do to her." _

Chara looked down at the ground guiltily. "She's a real hero then, isn't she?" Jeremiah was about to agree with her when Uydyne interrupted him. "So… kid, you're not going to sue me, right?" Jeremiah was quick to assure his new sixth greatest personal hero, (the first five were Jesus, Saint Rogers, Timothy, Saint Patrick, and King Josias) that he wouldn't sue her. Uydyne sagged in relief. "Oh thank God." The three of them were all silent for a moment until Uydyne asked. "So where are you going?" Jeremiah smiled as he answered her question. "Well I was going to meet the king, I need to tell him about two threats to the kingdom." Uyndyne suddenly perked up, a wide grin stretching across her face. "What sort of threats?" Jeremiah had to force himself to ignore her razor-sharp teeth as he replied. "Well we both know that Papyrus is a threat to the kingdom, but I believe he's working with a talking yellow flower." Undyne' grin vanished, Jeremiah could only assume it was because she just realized how serious this was. But almost as soon as it vanished, it returned. "Well, as the captain of the royal guard, it's my duty to save the kingdom from threats from within and without. So, I'll make sure you arrive safely to King Asgore, all you have to do is deliver your message."

Jeremiah's eyes widened like saucers, he could understand why Monster Kid praised her so much. She was willing to risk her own life to protect a random kid like him and smile about it. He knew what he was about to do was silly, but he couldn't help himself. He ran straight towards Uyndyne and wrapped his arms around her. "Thank you… thank you so much."

* * *

Uydyne just stood there frozen as the weird kid hugged her. Papyrus had told her this kid was really into role-playing-games, but he hadn't told her the kid was this into them. Honestly, if she knew they were this into it, she would've thought twice about agreeing to play with them. She still probably would have agreed to play though. Papyrus and that flower friend he told her about were both playing, and it wasn't like she had anything better to do. The kid's stomach suddenly growled. Uyndyne stared at the kid for a moment before asking. "Do you wanna grab a snack at my house before we go on our quest?" The kid let go of her, took a step back, and nodded. She gave the weird kid a wolfish grin. "Follow me then."

* * *

**(AN)... Sorry, I took nearly a month to**** upload this chapter. I was incredibly busy, (please don't look at the many hours spent playing the ****old world blues mod for HOI4). Being perfectly honest, I was in a little bit a funk and had trouble getting the motivation to write, but thank Jesus I've been getting out of it. Also praise God I even got this chapter out before the end of the month. **

**I tried to be a little bit more descriptive in this chapter, can you guys let me know if I did a good job or not. Also please leave a review and tell me how I can improve my writing. **

**I hope you enjoy this chapter, God bless and have a wonderful day.**


	12. Jonah 2:1

Undyne smiled wolfishly at Jeremiah, (which he found kinda funny on account of her being a fish). "What do you think about my house? It's cool, right?" The house in question was made of tiles that were colored lavender, black and a color Jeremiah couldn't decide if it was pinkish purple or a purplish pink. Not only that, the house was designed to look like a giant angry fish head.

Jeremiah had a lot of thoughts about her house, and if he was correct in assuming she wasn't asking him if the house looked cold, then he was fairly certain he didn't find her house, "cool." Chara groaned. "Come on Jeremiah, her house is a giant fish, that's awesome." Jeremiah frowned slightly. "_It really isn't. Imagine how weird it would be if I built my house to look like a giant human." _

Chara rolled her eyes. "You're just hating."

He was going to argue further, but he noticed Undyne staring at him. Realizing he had been standing there quietly for about a minute, he answered her with the first thing he could think of. "It… uh, looks just like you."

Undyne blushed. "Gee thanks, but it's actually supposed to look more like my grandma." Jeremiah tried to come up with something to say to that, but failed to. Silence seized it's awkward and uncomfortable throne for a moment and everyone involved suffered.

Thankfully, the heroic Uydyne quickly cast down the tyrant with a simple question. "Do you want to walk inside?" Jeremiah, filled with desperation to avoid being under that terrible tyrant's reign once again, quickly agreed. With that, they both made their way inside her home.

* * *

Jeremiah paused as he stepped inside her home. He had hoped the interior of Uydyne's home would be more… conventional than this, but it looked like his hopes were in vain. Her floor was made of blue and yellow tiles, while her walls were made of blue and pink tiles. "Wow, for someone so cool her kitchen is awfully tacky." Jeremiah felt inclined to agree with Chara on that.

That wasn't even getting started with her extremely odd choice in decorations. There were strange drawings of what appeared to be a girl with cat ears fighting another cat eared girl, all of these were pinned to the wall with spears. Speaking of spears, the amount of very sharp weapons lying about her home was simply ridiculous. He could understand having a few just in case some bandit broke into your home, (heck, he even has a few knives hidden around the monastery just in case a wild animal breaks into the monastery again) but this was simply paranoid! It wasn't even like any of these weapons would be that useful in case of a home invasion, she didn't even own a gun! It was honestly kinda sad, even Uydyne, the most noble of monsters, was being forced to use these savage weapons. _I guess that just means I have even more work to do._

"You do realize I don't care if you sit down… do you?" Jeremiah jumped up slightly when Uydyne suddenly spoke up. He looked over at Undyne who was staring at him, her face was a weird mix of impatience and awkwardness.

Chara stared at him unimpressed. "Great you've made it weird."

Jeremiah ignored Chara's comment and nodded his head. "Thanks Miss Undyne." He then made his way to the chair and sat down.

Undyne smiled as he sat down before making her way to a strange white box. "_What is that, Chara?" _

Chara, who was currently standing right beside him, laughed. "That's a fridge. It keeps food cold."

Jeremiah looked at Chara in amazement. "_That's amazing! The old world truly must've been a marvelous world to live in!" _He could feel Chara was embarrassed by what he said. She was about to tell him it wasn't all that great, when Uydyne opened the fridge.

Steam practically poured out of the fridge when she opened it. Jeremiah and Chara both stared at it in amazement. "Why… Why is there steam coming out of her refrigerator?"

Uydyne tilted her head to look at Jeremiah, and even though she never heard her, Uydyne answered Chara's question. "I had Dr. Alphys fix my fridge so it heats up food instead of ruining it by making it cold! Cool huh?" Before Jeremiah could respond, Undyne asked another question, this time aimed at herself. "Wait, did I just make a pun? Damn it Sans!" She then remembered the fact Jeremiah was still staring at her. "Sorry if I scared you there kid." Jeremiah told her it was ok, so she dipped her head into the fridge. She only had her head in there for a moment before declaring. "Looks like there's no food here. Guess we'll have to cook some spaghetti instead."

Jeremiah's heart skipped a beat when she said spaghetti. "No!" Undyne jumped slightly when he shouted, causing her to bump her head on the fridge.

She cursed and quickly pulled her head out of the fridge and faced him. "What the hell was that about kid?"

Jeremiah winced when she shouted at him, her face being marred with rage didn't help matters either. "I… uh… the last time I ate spaghetti… I was poisoned."

Her rage vanished in an instant, being replaced by confusion. "You were poisoned?" He nodded and she kept staring at him in disbelief. "Really?"

He nodded again, this time choosing to elaborate. "Yes, I was poisoned by Papyrus."

At the mention of his name, her face seemed to go through a million different emotions. The first was confusion, then anger, then mortification, finally ending with a reluctant acceptance. "Wow… I guess he really is bad. I didn't believe it when Sans told me…"

Jeremiah got out of his chair so he could pat Uydyne on the shoulder. "It's ok, he just needs someone to teach him to be better."

Uydyne sighed. "That was supposed to me." Chara's eyes widened when she heard that, a new (admittedly really far out there) idea popping into her mind. She didn't dare mention it to Jeremiah, because if her idea was right, it would be completely and utterly scandalous, (besides she didn't trust Jeremiah not to just blurt it out to everyone). Uydyne suddenly perked up much to Jeremiah's surprise. "Do you know how to cook?"

Jeremiah stared at Uydyne, completely confused by the sudden change in topic. "...No?" He said slowly.

Uydyne seemed to shrink slightly, but only slightly. "Oh… well we'll find someone to teach him to be better, won't we?" Jeremiah nodded, doing his best to smile confidently at Undyne, even though he had his doubts that Papyrus could ever become good. Undyne turned her head away from him and looked at the steaming fridge behind her. "Well if you won't eat spaghetti there's nothing for you to eat here. So if you want to eat, we'll have to go to Temmie village." Undyne sounded exasperated as she said Temmie Village. Not only that, Chara groaned at the mention of Temmie village.

Jeremiah looked over at Chara, confused as to why both of them were acting like this. "_What's the problem with Temmie village?" _

Chara rolled her eyes and shot him back with a question of her own. "What isn't the problem with Temmie village?"

Chara could feel the confusion and frustration radiating from Jeremiah. "_How would I even know? I've never been there." _ Chara was about to tease him some more about it, but she noticed a third emotion hidden within his confusion and frustration, fear

She sighed, "It's not dangerous or anything… it's just weird"

She could feel his fear and frustration vanish, leaving only confusion and curiosity. "_How is it weird?" _

Chara tried to come up with a way to describe just how weird the Temmies were, but she quickly gave up. "It's just something you need to see to believe."

Jeremiah stared at her skeptically for a moment before being interrupted by Uydyne. "Hey kid, do you want anything to drink before we leave?" He jumped up in surprise from her sudden shouting. He took a moment to calm himself down, but once he did he turned and told her he would like a drink. "Great! What do you want to drink?" He was about to tell her some water would be perfect, his throat was starting to feel pretty dry after all. But before he could even begin to speak, Undyne interrupted him. "You know what? Why should I even ask that question when you're obviously a tea guy?"

Jeremiah's red eyes widened. "_How can she afford tea?" _He asked Chara in shock. Instead of replying, Chara just mumbled something underneath her breath about the future being weird.

"Feel free to sit back down while I make the tea. It will take a while." He did as she asked, and watched on in silence as she made him tea.

It took her a few minutes to do so, but as soon as it was done she brought it over to the table. Steam was practically billowing from the tea, so he made sure to blow on it before taking a sip. The tea reminded him of a summer day back at home, it was scolding hot and miserable. Still, his host had more than likely spent a small fortune on this and was being nice enough to give him some, so he ignored the way it burned his mouth and swallowed. He could feel the boiling hot liquid travel from his throat all the way down to his stomach. His host smiled as he drank it. "Do you like it?" She asked him eagerly.

He was silent for a moment, unsure if he should be polite or be honest. Chara suddenly let out a groan. "If you don't like the damn tea, just tell her! I highly doubt she'll care."

Jeremiah could feel the roof his mouth begin to peel and he realized he could do some serious damage to himself if he kept drinking the tea. "It's good… but it's uh… a little bit hot."

Undyne's smile dropped for a moment before quickly returning. "Why didn't you just say so?" She grabbed the cup of tea and went over to the sink. She poured some more water into the cup and walked back to the table as soon as she was done. "I put some cold water in there for you. Give it a minute or two to cool down before drinking it."

Jeremiah took her advice to heart and waited a few minutes before taking another sip. Undyne's words were proven true, the tea was just about room temperature now. It still hurt to drink, but that was due to him already burning his mouth. He could honestly say he enjoyed it, despite the slight amount of pain it caused him. The tea had a light earthy taste to it. Once he swallowed, he smiled. "Much better." He told Undyne.

His host let out a snort. "Knew you would like it. It's golden flower tea, the king's favorite."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "You know the king?"

Undyne nodded. "He taught me everything I know."

Jeremiah took another sip of his tea before asking. "How did that even end up happening?"

Uydyne smirked and said. "Well that's quite the story. When I was just a kid I showed up to his house and challenged him to a fight."

Jeremiah's red eyes became the size of saucers. "You did what?

Undyne laughed at his surprise. "Yep, I tried to beat up the king, just to prove I could." Undyne's happy demeanor seemed to be infected with just a little bit of melancholy. "Well... the keyword there is tried. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't even lay a finger on him. He didn't even fight back, he just dodged all my attacks until I was too tired to even pick myself off the ground."

Jeremiah could barely hear Chara mutter underneath her breath. "I never knew he could fight that good."

Jeremiah ignored the fact he heard her, instead focusing on Undyne's story. "So what happened next, was he mad at you?"

Undyne shook her head. "Not at all, he's far too dorky to be mad at anyone. He just helped me backup to my feet and offered to teach me how to fight like him. I accepted his offer and every day after that he taught me how to fight, until one day I was able to knock him onto the ground." Uydyne laughed again. "I never seen anyone so happy to get their butt kicked before. After that, he made me captain of the royal guard." They both became silent for a moment, until Uyndyne eventually asked him. "How about you?"

Jeremiah looked up from his tea in surprise. "Me?"

"Yes, you. I gave you my dramatic backstory, so it's your turn to tell me yours."

Jeremiah blushed. "I wouldn't call my backstory dramatic."

Chara groaned. "Jeremiah, your parents left you for dead as a child, I would say that's pretty dramatic."

Jeremiah flinched slightly but otherwise ignored her comment. "But if you really want to know I'll tell you."

* * *

"What do you mean they just left you? Why would they do that?" Undyne practically screamed at the kid, causing him to flinch. She had never heard of monsters abandoning their children before and she couldn't believe someone would do something like that. She wanted to do nothing more than to find those… uh, monsters and beat them to a bloody pulp and send them to Asgore.

Undyne's revenge fantasies were interrupted by the kid meekly speaking up. "It was because I have the blight. It's a birth defect up on the surface that…" As soon as he said the word, "surface," Undyne realized the kid was still in character and was just telling her his OC's backstory. As much as the fact he wasn't actually abandoned as a child relieved her, it still pissed her off he got her all worked up like that. Still, it would be kinda awkward to break character now, so she stayed silent as the kid told her about his backstory.

The kid was in the middle of telling her about how his OC sometimes stays awake all night, wondering if his parents ever miss him, when she noticed the time. "Hey kid!" The kid stopped and looked at her in surprise. "It's past noon, if you want lunch we'll have to leave now."

The kid was silent for a moment before nodding. "Ok… you wanna lead the way?" Undyne gave him a thumbs up and went to walk away. The kid got out of his chair and followed her.

* * *

**(AN)**** Guys, I'm really sorry to say this, but I think I'm going to put this story on hiatus and basically rewrite the whole thing. I'm doing this because the way I've written this story was really stupid. I had no real outline and only a few vague ideas on what I wanted to do in this story. I was pretty much winging every chapter I wrote. I felt like this was leading to inconsistent characterization. Not only that, I was really stressing myself out to make sure that I got a chapter out at least once a month, which I felt was probably decreasing the quality of the chapters due to rushing them. **

**So I'm going to take lots of time to actually write an entire first draft. It'll be way less stressful for me and you guys will be getting a better product. I'll be keeping this old version up even after doing the rewrite. Keep an eye out for whenever I do, do a rewrite. I'm sorry for doing this and to all of you who've followed, favorited and reviewed this story, thank you and God bless. **


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